MARPA’s partnership with the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration through the Market Development Cooperator Program (“MDCP”)–the program that allowed MARPA to initiate our annual EMEA Conference in Europe–is drawing to a close. As we’ve explained several times over the past few years, the MDCP is a matching grant program of the Commerce Department designed to help companies increase their exports and support U.S. jobs and the U.S. economy.
Reporting on exports arising from our programs under the grant is a condition of its award. MARPA is proud to have been able to report exports of nearly $30 million that were traceable to efforts of MARPA and its members under MDCP-supported projects, especially the EMEA Conference and educational missions to several countries around the world. This, however, was far short of our goal. We also believe it underestimates the true volume of exports attributable to the work of MARPA and its members. And so once again we are asking for your help.
MARPA needs export data from your company so we can continue to fulfill our obligations to the ITA and help validate MARPA’s receipt of the MDCP award in 2014. This is doubly important now, as MARPA has re-applied for an MDCP grant in hopes of allowing MARPA to continue to expand our efforts to support exports of PMA around the world. This means getting our members in front of operators and regulators in countries where PMA is not yet widely accepted. An MDCP award would go a significant way toward making that goal a reality.
MARPA knows these are challenging times. But we also know that our members provide the exact solutions that support our industry when the economy gets tough and we’re confident we will continue to thrive. Your efforts now to collect and provide MARPA with export data that is in any way connected with our MDCP efforts (especially the EMEA Conference) will help us in the future by demonstrating our value as a partner to ITA in increasing U.S. exports and will allow MARPA to develop new beneficial programs.
MARPA would be very grateful to our members if you would each take the time to collect data on your company’s exports and provide them to VP of Government and Industry Affairs Ryan Aggergaard at ryan@washingtonaviation.com. All data is kept anonymous when reported to ITA and combined with other reported data to ensure member anonymity. If you have any questions about reporting data feel free to contact us and MARPA thanks you for your support and looks forward to continuing to grow with you.