Local links to Asia’s economy

By Flickr user Koshyk

President Obama’s overseas economic meetings, currently underway, give you a great time peg for a biz feature on your economy’s ties to Asia.

The president is amid a week-long tour of China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, including a summit of the Association of Southeast Asia economic alliance.

The trip comes a few days after news that the U.S. trade deficit widened in September despite an increase in exports by U.S. companies. This Bloomberg piece notes that the gap grew by the largest increment since 1999, and also gives a good overview of what’s driving import and export business between the U.S. and overseas partners.

Understanding the macro view is important; making it relevant to local readers is where you come in. How much are jobs, wages and opportunities in your backyard affected by foreign trade? Do they get a boost, or are your readers losing to overseas competition?

Here’s a link to a previous tipsheet on trade with China; it includes links to Commerce Department tools for finding local international trade data. You can adapt the tips to reporting foreign trade with any country or multiple countries depending on your region’s specialties.

Another resource: The Census Bureau. Its FactFinder channel includes a foreign trade menu that lets you search by state for statistics. They seem a bit stale but even reviewing older data helps when brainstorming trend and feature story ideas.

Finding firms that have direct connections with Asian or other foreign commerce is a great place to start. Manufacturers are an obvious starting point but don’t overlook biomedical companies, transportation firms, agriculture and other sectors.

If you’re not sure where to start, make a coffee date with some local commercial lenders. They know who’s up to what, and where, and can give you guidance on which local firms may be trading with overseas partners and which may be targets for foreign investors.

Dig around, too, for ancillary money makers, from language programs to overseas work-study-research affiliations through local universities. Consultants who bridge language, legal and protocol gaps in the sector also are springing up.

Translators, international accounting specialists and other niche services fly low on the radar screen but make for interesting and timely work-life and career features.