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The Indiana Daily Student

Life sciences sector growing in Indiana

Indiana’s merchandise export levels reached a record-breaking $35.5 billion dollars in 2014, according to a Commerce Department report published Feb. 26.

Indiana’s merchandise export growth helped contribute to the record-breaking national level of $2.35 trillion in 2014, according to the report.

There were 11.3 million United States jobs supported by exports in 2013, with Indiana holding 166,000 of those jobs, according to the International Trade Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of ?Commerce.

Indiana’s largest export partner by a large margin was Canada, which accounted for $12.2 billion, or 34.5 percent, of overall exports in 2014.

Indiana has actively courted international trade in recent years.

Gov. Mike Pence has conducted two overseas trade ?missions, one to Japan in 2013 and one to Germany in 2014, in an attempt to encourage ?economic investment in Indiana.

“Germany is doing relatively well, I would expect exports to stay robust,” Director of ?Economic Analysis at the Indiana Business Research Center Timothy Slaper said. “The European economy has been in the doldrums, that would be a potential threat.”

The Indiana Business ?Research Center is a part of the ?Kelley School of Business that works to provide economic data to local governments and businesses, according to the Center’s website.

The Center’s studies of Indiana exports includes a ?recently published report on ?Indiana’s global positioning in the ?market and the 2012 report “Mind the Gap” which studied under-performing export areas in the ?Indiana economy.

Bloomington gained $1.7 ?billion from export industries in 2013, according to the International Trade Administration ?report.

The Bloomington metropolitan area was the third largest metropolitan area in Indiana in terms of exports in 2013. It only fell behind the Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson area at $9.7 billion and the Elkhart-Goshen area at $1.9 billion, according to the report.

Though the Evansville area produced $3.9 billion in ?exports in 2013, portions of that amount were included in other states’ export totals, according to the Trade Administration ?report.

This includes, for ?example, workers who live in Indiana but commute to Kentucky for work.

Transportation equipment was Indiana’s largest export category, contributing $10.5 billion dollars of the total export amount for the state.

Other top export categories in Indiana included chemicals at $8.7 billion, non-electrical machinery at $4.2 billion, miscellaneous manufactured commodities at $2.1 billion and computer and electronic products at $1.8 billion.

“Exports are critical to economic growth and job creation in communities across the country,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said in a press release.

Opening more markets to ‘Made in America’ goods and services is fundamental to our nation’s competitiveness, job creation and the economic security of our families.”

Indiana was among many U.S. states that had a good year for exports in 2014.

There were record-breaking export levels in 26 states in 2013, while another eight states increased their export ?totals from their 2013 ?levels, according to the ?report.

Export levels across the U.S. have been increasing consistently, with the past five years showing record-breaking export levels, according to the Commerce Department report.

Much of this growth comes from countries with which the U.S. has free trade agreements.

In 2014, $19.8 billion of Indiana’s export total came from free trade partners, more than half of the state’s total.

“The Obama Administration has set an ambitious trade agenda that will help our businesses, workers and innovators ?compete on a level playing field around the world, so they can expand and hire here at home,” ?Pritzker said.

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