Tech exports across the nation
If you live in Austin or the Silicon Valley, you’re well aware that there is a rivalry between Texas and California regarding technology accomplishments, be they exports, patents, funding, methods, and so on. The Dallas Morning News has revealed that regarding exports, Texas has outpaced California.
DMN reporter, Nick Swartsell writes, “Companies in Texas making semiconductors, telecommunications devices, computers, and other items shipped more than $45 billion in products to other countries in 2012, according to a report by the TechAmerica Foundation, a lobbying and advocacy firm representing the technology industries. That’s a $3 billion rise from 2011.”
Swartsell added, “Tech from Texas most often goes to Mexico- companies in the state shipped $22 billion south of the border in 2012. All that trade supported 331,000 jobs in Texas, the report said, also the most of any state. Texas has 22 percent of the nation’s technology manufacturing jobs.”
Exports in California fell 3.0 percent from the year prior, bringing in $44.8 billion in 2012. TechAmerica Foundation explained that Texas has transformed itself into a business-friendly manufacturing haven, with Texas Governor Rick Perry going on tour to convince California companies to convert to Texas, incentivizing their move with massive tax breaks and other perks.
Why the shift?
Matthew Kazmierczak of the TechAmerica Foundation accounted for the shift by explaining that while California tends to focus more on product design, Texas groomed itself as a business-friendly manufacturing mecca.
TechAmerica’s Matthew Kazmierczak told the Austin-American Statesman, “Texas also has some large-scale computer equipment manufacturing centers that have recently increased production and have resulted in significant increases in computer equipment exports, whereas in California the computer equipment manufacturing has decreased, contributing to the decrease in tech exports from California.”
Our favorite statement on the topic comes from the Austinist, “Who disrupts the disrupters? Texas.”
