BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - The Birmingham Business Alliance recently played host to its first "International Trade Briefing" designed to grow the metro area's economy by boosting the importing and exporting operations of existing Birmingham businesses.

Mark Brown, vice president of business retention and expansion at BBA, said businesses, communities and regions can grow their economies in a variety of ways, but finding new markets for their products and services can be a major contributor - one Birmingham hasn't fully tapped.

"We have some great companies - big and small - that have been doing business internationally for years," Brown said. "But we also have more opportunities and companies with the potential to pursue those opportunities."

While foreign trade was once thought of as being a big business pursuit, Brown said he knows of companies with a handful of people doing millions of dollars in exports each year.

Other companies are big importers, using products from other countries to boost employment and produce goods here, he said.

Royal Cup and Red Diamond are among the region's biggest importers, Brown said.

International trade is a component to the BBA's Blueprint Birmingham initiatives designed to not only grow the region's economy, but do so at a pace and level

greater than a set of peer cities.

Brown said the recent trade briefing highlighted that businesses in the Birmingham region, particularly small and medium sized businesses, are not doing enough in the way of trade.

Among the information in the briefing:

• Export intensity, the percent of economic output that is in exports, is 13 percent for the U.S., 16.5 percent for Alabama and 8.8 percent for Birmingham.
• For the U.S., 70.9 percent of exports are goods and 29.1 percent in services, compared to 68.6 percent goods and 31.4 percent services for Birmingham.
• Birmingham's main exported goods are in the iron and steel, coal mining, petroleum and coal products, motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts industries.
• Birmingham's main exported services are in the financial, freight and port, retail, ground transportation and insurance services.