MARPA is happy to announce that for a second year it has extended its partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration through the Market Development Cooperator Program (“MDCP”). We will continue to draw upon the expertise and wide network of contacts the ITA can bring to bear, and in exchange will continue to report export data to ITA, honoring the commitment MARPA made at the beginning of the MDCP relationship. Once again, there will be no additional direct funds from ITA as a result of the extension, but the support and resources ITA staff will continue to offer will be invaluable to MARPA’s continuing efforts to promote PMA around the world.
For those unfamiliar with our MDCP partnership, MARPA was granted an MDCP award of $300,000 in late 2014 for a program to promote the export of PMA parts to certain international markets of emphasis. MARPA’s obligations to secure the award included a 3-for-1 match of cash and in-kind contributions in support of its new initiatives as well as the collection of export data from participating companies to report to ITA to validate the MDCP program. (The obligation to report data is an import condition of receiving the MDCP funds and helps ITA justify this program to Congress to promote U.S. exports.) The vast majority of MARPA’s contribution was of the “in-kind” sort, primarily arising from the labors of MARPA staff in organizing conferences and participating in trade shows to promote PMA.
The matching award has allowed MARPA to establish a second conference: the MARPA EMEA Conference. The conference was held in three different locations in the past four years: Istanbul, Madrid, and twice in Dublin, and has resulted in new customer contacts for attendees, and generated new business for a number of U.S. companies. MARPA hopes to return to Dublin for a third time to continue build on our success generating new customers and, importantly, working to increase PMA understanding in the leasing community.
The MDCP award also allowed MARPA to participate in several trade shows around the world that we would otherwise not have had the resources to reach. These have included events in Europe, the UAE, Japan, Singapore, China, and South and Central America. MARPA will be returning to Japan in November.
As we continue our cooperative efforts with ITA, MARPA needs your help. We need our members to provide us with export data that we can report to ITA as part of our MDCP obligation. ITA keeps all this information confidential and are well versed in protecting sensitive information and trade secrets. However, MARPA is happy to report trade information anonymously if you prefer. (Each of our previous reports of export data to ITA has been done anonymously by MARPA.)
We need your help to provide us with export data so that we can honor our commitment to ITA. Your export data will also help MARPA better craft its conference agendas to offer the best and most helpful programming possible. Our goal is to help our members export more PMA parts to the world.
We hope to see many of you at our Annual Conference in Orlando, October 24-25. If you have an opportunity before hand, we encourage you to work within your company to develop data on your exports over the past year and bring that data with you so that we can provide a report (anonymously if you prefer!) to the ITA.
Questions or suggestions about the conferences? Contact Senior Program Manager Katt Brigham at katt@washingtonaviation.com.
Export data to report or questions about reporting? Email VP of Government and Industry Affairs Ryan Aggergaard at ryan@washingtonaviation.com.
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