North Carolina has seen a 25 percent increase in the amount of technology it exports to other countries over the past six years, according to a Cyberstates report out this morning.
This is the third year of the report which is produced by TechAmerica. The group, formed by merger of the Information Technology Association of America and AeA, wants to show how many jobs and how much money is tied to exports.
The report comes as three free trade agreements await passage in Congress.
“In tough economic times, the temptation exists to raise protectionist trade barriers to trade,” Christopher Hansen, TechAmerica’s president, said in a statement. He warns that such actions would have harmful economic consequences.
The state-by-state overview follows another report this spring by the group that looked at high-tech job growth in North Carolina in 2007, the latest year for which data was available for each state was available.
While the recession made that report a little moldy — it showed the state had 150,600 high-tech workers in 2007 — the current report looks at data for 2008 and shows a year-over-year increase in exports of 6.2 percent. North Carolina was one of 36 states that exported more technology last year.
According to the report, 14 percent — or $3.5 billion — of North Carolina’s $25.1 billion in exports were tech-related last year. South Carolina, on the other hand, saw its exports decrease by 8 percent between 2007 and 2008.
North Carolina’s most popular exports include computers, communications equipment, semiconductors and electronic components. The No. 1 destination for our goodies? Canada, which took in $897 million, followed by China ($446 million), Hong Kong ($193 million), the United Kingdom ($186 million) and Mexico ($146 million).
Mary Cornatzer has worked at The News & Observer for more than 25 years, covering the local music industry, state movie industry and travel. She has been the paper's Business editor since 2000. Contact Mary at 919-829-4755 or