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African Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific Northwest Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you once again.
If
the topic is Washington trade and economic development, I am always
happy to take part, as this is a major part of what we do in my office.
And, especially in these uncertain economic times, we need to be doing
all we can to uncover and develop new markets of opportunity.
On
behalf of the state of Washington, I would especially like to welcome to
our country the most distinguished visitor, his
Excellency Ambassador Daniel Ohene Agyekum (O-HEN-Aa A-GEE-KOOM) from Ghana. I
understand Ambassador Agyekum will help open the new store at Seattle
Chocolates down in the SouthCenter area later today. Hopefully you will
get to sample some of their fine chocolate made from African cocoa
beans, which I will say more about over the course of my remarks.
As we talk about the relations between Africa and Washington, it is
first important to note the myriad of influences people from the
continent of Africa have on our state. This is presented to us through
music, culture, trade, food, education and many other areas.
We celebrate the African culture at the annual Folk Life Festival in
Seattle, All African Liberation Day and around the holidays with
Kwanzaa, which is not religious in nature but is in celebration of
African cultural and historical heritage.
Our schools observe Black History Month in February and around that time
we also pay tribute to one of our nation’s greatest inspirations, the
Rev. Martin Luther King, whose time on this earth was far too short. We
have a number of excellent restaurants in the greater Puget Sound area
that serve African fare. These include the Pan Africa, the Banidar and
the Safari Kenyan Cuisine, to name a few.
Our
distinguished population of African-Americans in Washington includes
leaders in education, business, technology and government at the very
highest of levels. We are
fortunate to have three honorary consuls representing African nations in
our state, one from Uganda, one from Ethiopia and a third from the
Seychelles. And our state’s history is bursting with stories where
people of African descent have made their mark, starting with the
earliest settlers.
So
today we celebrate the contributions of Africans, African-Americans and,
especially, explore ways that we can develop even closer ties with that
mighty continent so far away.
I know many of you here are small business owners, African
immigrants, members of non-governmental organizations and others that
are somehow involved in Africa and the promise it holds for us.
We
hear so much about the turmoil within the continent.
Almost daily we are bombarded with news about the millions of
starving children in drought-ridden East Africa, the political unrest in
place like Somalia or, more recently, the successful revolutions in
Libya and Egypt.
We
have wonderful organizations within the Pacific Northwest that are doing
amazing things to help address those situations, such as Federal
Way-based World Vision and Portland-based Mercy Corps. We also have
organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation headquartered
here in Seattle, and PATH, which are working around the clock to address
global health concerns like malaria.
It is
these groups , along with efforts by our federal government, that are
truly making a difference, although, sadly, they are hardly scratching
the surface of what needs to be done. But little by little progress is
being made. Even personal initiatives are bearing fruit.
A few
weeks ago the office of World Vision in Federal Way was visited by a man
named Don Schoendorfer (“Shone-dorfer”) from the Los Angeles area.
About 10 years ago Mr. Schoendorfer and his wife Laurie were
vacationing in Morocco when they saw a disabled woman trying to drag
herself across a dirt road.
Don,
an inventor and M-I-T-trained engineer by trade, learned that this
woman’s plight was not uncommon – wheel chairs were simply too
expensive. So he came up
with a crude, cheap prototype chair made from a plastic lawn chair and
just a few dollars in parts.
In
fact, building inexpensive wheel chairs for disabled Africans and in
other developing countries became his mission in life. He started a
foundation and now, 10 years and many prototypes later, the foundation
has distributed nearly 600,000 wheel chairs, all for free, to disabled
people in Africa and around the world - at a cost of just over $60 each.
It is this kind of ingenuity, applied entrepreneurship in both
the areas of charity and commerce that is making a lasting and positive
difference.
What
this gathering is really all about today is using some of that American
– and African – ingenuity to improve our relationships and find mutually
beneficial ways to work together.
It is so often that we hear about the problems on the continent
that it overshadows the exciting and reciprocal exchanges that are just
waiting to take off.
There
are many nations in Africa that have moved past the turmoil that plagues
much of the rest of the continent and are doing quite well..
South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria
all boasted Gross Domestic Products of more than 200 billion dollars
U.S. in 2010, with Algeria and Morocco well over 100 billion GDP.
The
GDP of Africa as a whole is now placed at about 2.5 percent of the
world’s total. China, specifically, has increased its investments in
Africa by tenfold or more since 2001. Africa’s overall growth in GDP,
despite widespread poverty across the continent, has been as high as 6
percent in recent years. The economies among the countries of northern
Africa are closely tied to those of Europe, and serve as economic
gateways to the rest of the immense continent.
So as
we look for new opportunities, we must embrace all that is good and
right in this continent so far away, and do what we can to help Africa
as a whole in its march toward self-sustainability. This will happen in
part by us collectively working toward a diverse, yet sustainable,
economic platform that helps people both in Africa and in the state of
Washington.
I
would like to spend a few minutes talking about three diverse
opportunities that are already happening right here in Washington,
having to do with boats, beer and chocolate. What could be more diverse
than that?
Just
to the north of here, in Everett, is a boat manufacturing company called
Thain Boat Works. A couple of years ago Thain entered a partnership in
Uganda to build a new ferry system on Lake Victoria, which as many of
you know is bordered by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Lake Victoria is
among the largest lakes in the world, and is ringed by a population of
32 million people.
Now I
must tell you that Thain Boat Works is not building ferries for Lake
Victoria for charitable reasons, but for business reasons.
Simply put, the existing ferry fleet on Lake Victoria –
especially the fleet from Uganda – had crumbled to the point of
non-existence.
Thain
saw a business opportunity,
and partnered with a Ugandan national to create a company called Earth
Wise. Thain’s business plan calls
for the construction of 10 wood and Fiberglas catamarans, each about 60
feet and capable of carrying 150 passengers per run.
These
boats are efficient to build and powered by older Caterpillar engines.
Why? Because their main source of fuel is strained vegetable oil rather
than diesel. Vegetable oil is readily available from suppliers in Africa
and the older catamarans are better suited for burning vegetable oil
than the newer ones. And because
of that regional reliance, the mere presence of these boats is creating
new jobs, in Africa, in energy production.
Thain
is building these boats at their plant here and shipping the components
in containers to Uganda, where they are staged for final assembly.
The company calls these “ferries
in a box.” One boat is
already there, and is now under sea trials on the lake and should be
carrying passengers shortly. With each boat is a trained and fully
accredited, local crew, which will operate the craft to the highest of
professional standards.
According to Stan Youngs, the general manager of Thain Boat Works, the
company’s goal is to simply get over there, establish their service and
to let free market principles take over.
So this effort is really a win-win for Washington and Africa. It
creates jobs both here and there, and will ultimately provide a
valuable, marketable service that could potentially serve millions.
Now I
will spend a little time talking about, well, beer. It turns out that
Nigeria is among our state’s largest export markets for hops.
In the shipping year of 2009 to
2010, Nigeria imported 642,868 pounds of hops, or, actually, hop
extract, almost all of which most likely came from the state of
Washington we are told. What
is really good about this export from a jobs standpoint is that we don’t
just ship the raw product over there, as we do with our forest
resources.
The
hops extract is first put into cans, ranging from soup-sized to
50-gallon drums, in processing facilities in the Yakima Valley.
These cans are loaded onto refrigerated container trucks, hauled
over to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, placed on ships, then
transported through the Panama Canal to Nigeria where the product is
received by breweries in Nigeria.
In
fact Nigeria is Washington’s 21st largest customer for
Washington hop extracts. The number one customer is Belgium Luxembourg,
maker of Heineken. I do not know if there is any Nigerian beer that
makes its way back to the United States, but if there is you can almost
be assured that the beer is Washington-born.
So we certainly export a lot of hops to
Nigeria, but you can also find another popular Washington agricultural
product in African nations – particularly nations to the north. That
would be the apple.
Egypt, Libya and Morocco all buy Washington
apples. And, as of a couple of years ago when the market opened up,
South Africa began buying Washington apples too.
Last year we shipped 24 containers of apples
into Africa, representing 409,476 bushels, according to our friends at
the Washington Apple Commission.
In sum that is about $7.5 million in apples, mostly of the Red
Delicious variety.
As with wheat, there is competition from
Europe, primarily from France and Spain.
One of our challenges, of course, is keeping the product market
fresh as it makes its long journey overseas.
We also send a lot of fish and dairy products to Africa.
We are told very little Washington wheat makes
its way to Africa, due again to competition from the north, although
nearby Yemen buys about 12 percent of our wheat export market due to a
strong preference for making flat bread, a dietary staple, from soft
white wheat grown exclusively here in the Northwest.
Potatoes are also a promising
market in Africa, especially packaged, dehydrated potatoes which are
processed here in Washington, because they store well and can be used
for a variety of purposes.
Okay, I said I would cover beer and have now
spilled into more than that in the area of Washington exports.
And I didn’t even touch our technology sector!
But now I would like to talk a little about an African product
that is imported here, and in fact is very important to an industry that
is also important to my wife, Linda.
That would be chocolates.
As I mentioned at the start of my remarks, the
distinguished
Ambassador Daniel Ohene Agyekum from Ghana took part today in the
opening of a new Seattle Chocolates store down in the Tukwila area. That
is significant, because Ghana is a major producer of cocoa, and the
majority of cocoa beans that are used in Seattle Chocolates are from
either Ghana or from Nigeria. I am told that there was a time when most
cocoa came from South America, but over the past century that has
changed to the point where the majority comes from West Africa.
Seattle Chocolates is one of our region’s big
chocolate producers. They produce about 800,000 pounds of chocolate a
year, including such products as the extremely popular Macy’s Frango
line, Target’s Choxie line of Truffle bars and its own assorted brands.
While the company imports cocoa from African suppliers, rather than the
raw beans, the management of Seattle Chocolates is actively engaged in
making a difference in the West African economy.
Neil Campbell, the president of Seattle
Chocolates, is an active member of the World Cocoa Foundation which
encourages sustainable and responsible cocoa growing and supports cocoa
farmers.
In fact, Neil tells us that the 10 chocolate
producers in Washington and others throughout the west coast are more
partners than competitors, especially when it comes to encouraging cocoa
trade and responsible production and good strains. The Foundation is now
working on replacing the aging cocoa tree groves in Africa to ensure a
hearty future for the crop there. They also subsidize schools in Ghana
and make sure that there is a fair labor market.
Chocolate is huge to the west African economy
so sustaining a vibrant industry is very important to that region. The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested between 20 and 30 million
dollars into the World Cocoa Foundation to improve the quality of life
in cocoa-producing countries. Perhaps as a sign of solidarity with
Africa, Neil, company CEO Jean Thompson and another executive even
climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro last summer!
By the way, Seattle Chocolates has been quite
generous with our office – we include boxes of their chocolates in the
Washington gift packs we give to visiting dignitaries.
I tell you these stories as examples of the
living trade we, in Washington, have with our friends from Africa.
In my role as lieutenant governor I have been incredibly honored
to welcome several African delegations, including the amazing Ugandan
Orphans Choir earlier this year, to our state’s capital.
I suggest that as government leaders and as
business people we continue to look for every opportunity to engage in
trade and cultural exchanges with the great continent.
Why?
Trade is crucial to our state’s prosperity. It creates jobs and
stimulates our economy, and is important to our state’s future.
Even
with our economy still pulling out of a recession, trade remains a
bright spot, especially here in Washington where we have so much to
offer the rest of the world.
We
have a very diverse portfolio to share. Forest products, our huge
agricultural industry, wine, software, aerospace products, information
and communication technology, green and clean technology, life sciences,
building materials and wood products, and high tech industrial
manufacturing are all in that portfolio.
Washington wine is huge, growing leaps and bounds each year. A few years
ago I met with a group of entrepreneurs from Africa who were interested
in learning more about our wine industry. One of our wineries was
purchased by a couple from South Africa earlier this year, and I see a
lot of opportunity for wine exchanges.
We
export more than $50 billion a year to markets around the world. In 2010
we posted exports to 209 countries, total of $53 billion.
These numbers do include aerospace products,
but not software exports, services such as foreign exchange programs in
our universities and consulting services offered by a myriad of
specialists. Nor do they include Internet sales and services from
“e-tailers” (like Amazon).
So, how do we take advantage of these markets?
Now, more than ever, we need to look at
ourselves, where we are and where we want to be. We need to think hard,
work hard and act fast to stay in the game. We need to continue to find
and develop new markets and stay on the leading edge to keep our
competitiveness.
The
continent of Africa is a place where we can be especially proactive and
visionary, as it holds great promise.
As business people, as government officials we need to look,
think and act.
The
economy may be slower today than it was a few years ago, but it is
improving and we have to continue to try. We can either sit andwatch or
we can take positive steps to keep us moving ahead.
Whether it is beer, potatoes, boats, chocolates or something entirely
different, we can find ways to be creative in Africa and to come out
with big wins for our respective economies and ourselves.
Thomas Edison said:
“Be
courageous. I have seen many
depressions in business.
Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous.
Be brave as your fathers before you.
Have faith! Go
forward!”
Thomas Edison is said to have failed more than 1,000 times when trying
to create the light bulb.
When asked about it, Edison allegedly said, “I have not failed 1,000
times. I have successfully
discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.”
“I am
not discouraged, because every wrong attempt is another step forward.”
We
live in an ever changing world and it is up to Washington to step up to
the challenge, be innovative, and keep our economy broad and strong.
Let’s
follow Edison’s lead and do what we can to get the lights glowing.
Together we can build strong communities, for our kids, for business and
for the future. Thank you.
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Call the Office of Lieutenant
Governor Owen: (360) 786-7700 |
