The city of Kent will takes its place on the world stage next week when the Washington State Community, Trade and Economic Development’s Trade Week 2009 wraps up with a pair of events at the ShoWare Center.
The week is designed as an opportunity to bring the state’s foreign representatives home as well as give local businesses the opportunity to meet the people who represent Washington’s business interests in more than 30 countries.
“It’s the one week a year we being back all our foreign representatives,” said Mark Calhoon, senior managing director at CTED.
The four-day event features stops all over the Evergreen State, including Seattle, Wenatchee, Spokane, Bellingham and Tacoma, but wraps up with a symposium and then the Governor’s Trader of the Year awards reception, both March 19, at the ShoWare Center.
“Kent’s kind of the big, all-day gala event,” Calhoon said.
According to Calhoon, CTED tries to pick one greater-Seattle location each year for the event.
“We’ve had our eye on Kent for quite a while,” he said. “We’re glad it worked out this year.”
Calhoon said moving the event around gives the representatives a chance to meet with businesspeople from different parts of the state to discuss what CTED can do for their businesses.
“The ultimate goal of all this work is to create jobs and employment opportunities for Washington citizens,” he said.
Calhoon said CTED reps tend to focus on industries such as aerospace, software and clean technology, but all businesses are welcome.
Business leaders also can learn about state resources devoted to trade and export assistance and hear about key trade issues, including emerging business opportunities in Washington’s key markets and obstacles U.S. businesses face when exporting.
A lunch symposium features in-depth discussions about markets in Europe and Asia.
“It should be a pretty interesting program,” Calhoon said.
The week’s events close with the Governor’s Trader of the Year awards banquet, hosted this year by Lt. Gov. Brad Owen. This year’s awards are set to go to Mulvanny G2 Architecture of Bellevue and SonoSite Inc. of Bothell.
Mayor Suzette Cooke, who was in Washington, D.C., this past week on an economic-development mission, said in an e-mail that Kent’s location between Tacoma and Seattle, as well as its large amount of warehouse distribution space, made Kent a “hub of international trade.” The mayor also cited the ShoWare center as a successful example of how to bolster a local economy.
“ShoWare Center is a great example of economic development: construction jobs, FT and PT jobs, sales and admission tax revenues. It is a tourism attraction and is providing increased economic activity at surrounding businesses. Not to mention being environmentally friendly as a LEED Silver, and potentially Gold-rated building,” she wrote.
Kent Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Andrea Keikkala agreed the event was an opportunity to showcase Kent.
“Many of Kent’s businesses are contributors in the international market and this symposium brings foreign trade representatives from around the globe to meet face-to-face with local businesses and community leaders,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Not only does this event give us access to the lieutenant governor to share our concerns regarding the local business community on a state and international level, we are also able to showcase our new ShoWare Center to the attendees from around the state of Washington.”
Learn more
For more information or tickets to the symposium, contact the Kent Chamber of Commerce at 253-854-1770. For more information on the Trader of the Year Awards Reception contact the World Trade Club at 206-686-3736.
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