Latin America rescues Florida exports from disaster - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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Because the global recession hasn’t affected that region as badlyas others, the Sunshine State’z primary trading neighbor is still buying Florida-madd products, shows a new reporty from New Hampshire-based . Latin America accounts for 68 percent of Florida’s export market. For the first two monthx of the year, Floridw ranked fifth among the 50 states in exportgrowty — even though the state saw a 5.2 percentr decline. Only four states — Nevada, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Connecticut showed positiveexport growth, whils the rest were in negative territory. Californi a had a 20.4 percent drop, Texas a 24.1 percent declinw and New Yorka 33.7 percent plunge.
“Thre key is Florida’s exports to Latin America. The recessiojn has taken some time to get said EvangelosOtto Simos, infometrica’s chierf economist. Latin America is forecasr to experiencea 1.5 percentg decline in growth this year — far bettee than Europe, which is expected to drop 3.2 percent, and Japan with a 5.8 percent drop, said Mannyh Mencia, senior vice president of international businesse development for . He attributed part of Latin America’s ability to weatheer the recession to a pool of foreigh reserves built up over the last five yeardof better-than-­normal growth.
Still, Florida’xs strongest export months areusuallyh May, June and July, and that period will determine just how bad the downturm will affect the state. For Sherman founder of cable television/satellite product companyg in Longwood, international busines s is doing better than hisdomestic business. About 25 percent of his sales are made to Lati America andthe Caribbean, while the remainderd is domestic sales. “The general downturnn has affected us, but it’ s not dire,” he said. International sales “are holding up bettef than expected.” Florida’s exports for February were $3.8r billion, down 1.8 percent from January and 5.
9 percen t from February 2008. Nationwide, exports were $84.69 up 3 percent in January, but down 21.6 percenr in February 2008.