WASHINGTON: Exports of manufactured goods contributed significantly to the state’s international trade, accounting for 75 percent of all state exports in August. Exports from state manufacturers decreased in August by 7.1 percent from the previous month to $2.99 billion.
Meanwhile, exports of non-manufactured goods went down by 20.4 percent in August to $1.01 billion. This group of foreign sales consists of agricultural goods, mining products and re-exports — foreign goods that entered the state as imports and are exported in substantially the same condition.
Florida ranked 29th among the 50 states through the first eight months of this year. Compared to the same period in 2014, foreign sales from Florida’s companies, seasonally adjusted, decreased by an annual rate of 6 percent.
So what are the prospects for the remainder of this year and into 2016? The International Monetary Fund projects global economic growth to average 3.1 percent this year from 3.4 percent in 2014. For next year, IMF predicts worldwide economic growth to edge up to 3.6 percent, implying that next year the world economy will be slightly better off in comparison to this year, said Evangelos Otto Simos, chief economic adviser for e-forecasting.com.
More important for Florida’s exporters, IMF predicts the volume of exports for industrial countries to average 3.1 percent in 2015 and slightly accelerate to 3.4 percent in 2016.
In view of these future trends, Florida companies doing business abroad are expected to witness somewhat better levels of export orders from their major foreign markets next year, especially from clients in emerging economies, said Simos.
