Editor:
As my company provides export finance loans to companies all over the country, I have daily online subscriptions to about 30 Business Journals.
It’s a very fine service, by the way.
When I moved to San Diego 15 years ago, headlines universally promoted San Diego as being ideally positioned to be the Pacific Rim capital for the West Coast and serve a role similar to the one Miami serves on the East Coast for the Caribbean nations and South America , only the PacRim is much, much bigger.
In the last two months all three of the Florida Business Journals have each featured at least two stories on local reactions, pro and con, to the DR-CAFTA negotiations, which narrowly passed in the House 217-215. (The
Houston Business Journal
sent me this information this afternoon. The
San Diego Business Journal
Manufacturing Digest arrived about the same time, and didn’t mention it.)
In fact, all the Texas Business Journals have covered the implications of DR-CAFTA to their local economies. I mention Florida and Texas because they are California’s biggest export rivals.
I have seen nothing about DR-CAFTA in the San Diego Business Journal , or in the Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose or Los Angeles Business Journals. Do California’s politicians have no opinions? Are no San Diego companies planning to explore this opportunity, for better or worse?
Have the California Business Journals entered into an agreement to virtually ignore such a major California economic powerhouse?
Importing and exporting provide many exciting and well-paid jobs, and there are lots of associations and meetings, activities and classes going on around the state to support this important industry sector. Our universities are teaching thousands of young people about doing business in the international marketplace, and to be entrepreneurs.
Immigrants find importing and exporting a viable small business to start with comparatively little overhead. These are stories that should be right up the Business Journal’s alley.
And what happened to the Pacific Rim vision for San Diego? It’s a viable concept worthy of revival. San Diego needs some “vision” these days.
Sally Johnson
InterNetLC.com
San Diego
