Speech : Gina Hortance

Transatlantic Leadership facing tomorrow’s challenges

The disconnect thereexists between the EU/US small businesses is obvious. There has not be an initiative (known by me) that focuses particularly on the “small business” concerns and relationship within the two regions. Thus, debates and recommendations for solutions on the subject matter have been few.

Why is that concern an important one to address? Simply stated, small businesses drive the US economy by creating over 20 million jobs in the past ten years and there is no doubt small businesses greatly impact the European economy as well. The statistics support that statement.

Transatlantic relations needs major reshaping. Such process will require us to be brave, as was so eloquently encapsulated in Dr. Donna Lenaghan’s commencement day presentation chosen song.

Small businesses is about daring to dream dreams. Taking the bold step of running and growing their businesses, these entrepreneurs are about commitment, sacrifice and struggle. You’ll hear us say often:
”If I don’t do this, my life won’t be complete”.
In as different as we are on one side of the Atlantic to the next, everybody is doing it. The young, the old, men, women, the small, the big. And, people of every color. The one characteristic everybody has in common is: Courage.

We have to be leaders who take risks in order we make a difference in people’s lives. There is nothing against the rules in helping people have better lives. The difference between corporate leadership and some of the leadership seen in small business, there is a lot more courage than you see in large corporations.

Small Businesses and the smaller economies have been left out of most processes of change. We therefore unnoticeably create a problem by not taking care of the very least, in business. We forget that we are only as strong as our weakest link. In Transatlantic relations, small businesses are a weak link, so is the Transatlantic leadership as a whole.
We are the segment of the business population that suffers instantaneously of any and all changes with any decision made by government, policy changes, large corporations in particular.

The problem of outsourcing has greatly affected small businesses in the US. In particular, the growing perception that outsourcing has spread to higher-paying computer jobs is fueling the debate nationwide in the US. As of this date, state and federal lawmakers (in the US) are drafting a variety of bills including barring businesses that outsource jobs from receiving government contracts and tax breaks.

Economists warn that the lawmakers’ approach ultimately will hobble free trade and cost more workers their jobs. However, New York University economist William Baumol said :”The right argument is that international competition has historically increased innovation in the US”.

This statement fluidly takes us into the Transatlantic Trade relations with small businesses. Does such relation exist? Is it important to cherish such thought? The thought of a dedicated effort to engage and facilitate Trade access amongst small businesses in the Transatlantic region?

I happen to be one who believes the need is urgent. I’ll first quote the former President of Mexico, Mr. Ernesto Zedillo, who currently heads the Globalization Department at Yale University, jointly wrote the article with former Finance Minister of Canada, Mr. Paul Martin.
In his article published in the Miami Herald dated August 10, 2003, he stated:

“If small businesses could expand beyond the village square, they could drive their countries’ growth better than any aid agency…

They further stated in the article:
…the process is just getting started. Market liberalization and Trade expansion lifted millions out of poverty in the 1990s, particularly in China and India. In other regions, developing countries that liberalized their economies and encouraged foreign investment grew faster…

….part of the reason for this may be that economic reform must now move down to the human level, from trade and monetary policy to the web of legal and financial impediments entangling small business. When the business potential of the developing world is unleashed, the benefits will be more than economic, private enterprise can create powerful interests vested in peace.”

Mr. Ernesto Zedillo continues his effort to educate the world of lessons he learned from what I call “his NAFTA years” and the small businesses in Mexico….Those who are truly interested in making a difference and are willing to learn, will understand the validity of the topic of trade and small businesses in a globalized world.

One can read Mr. Zedillo’s most recent article in this month’s Forbes Magazine highlighting the need to support the Entrepreneurs.

As I sat through countless meetings at Chambers of Commerce, World Trade Centers, as I speak with Directors of foreign WTCs, as I attend various FTAA and Trade sessions in Miami I have NEVER heard anyone speak on the matter of small businesses, smaller economies and International Trade. To the exception of my friend Alvino Monk former Trade specialist to the Miami Mayor’s office and myself. In as much as Academia can strongly educate us with respect to valid case studies profiled in books mixed with the savvy of our Professors, we cannot negate the building block that is the essential experience of those who are in the trenches, the entrepreneurs, the thinkers.

It is essential for us to avoid protracting this inefficient and ineffective way of thinking that the brain knows gender or race.

For four years I have worked on a solution to bridge the disconnect existing amongst small businesses in various regions. Inter-regionally and Intra-regionally are they disconnected but for the new economy concept I incorporated under the Trade Portal of the Americas and its virtual Trade Zone http://www.ibotrade.com (international business offerings and trade =ibotrade). We must leverage technology to interconnect our global initiatives.

Our value offering is simple. We want to enable viable connections between small businesses who currently are “only selling to their village (or market)” via a one-stop-shop e-marketplace. Albeit, large corporations and manufacturing companies wishing to provide their offerings and liquidate their merchandise to a very interested, yet unaccessible market are able to do so via the same copula that TPOTA provides.

* Why shouldn’t small businesses in Romania and Israel and France have a direct link to the Caribbean, Latin American, US Small businesses?

The European group named MADE IN EUROPE (among many others) has not hesitated to ally with us through a strategic alliance. They not only understand what we are doing but made a decision quickly to be a part of it. TiesWeb is well positioned to enable us to create synergistic relationships that can benefit civil society if only for the fact that we are part of the solution and not of the problem.

IBOTrade congratulates TiesWeb for a strong effort in bringing us to the table to be “real” about true challenges there abound in all phases of our Transatlantic relations.

Indeed, when trade goes down to the human level, we create powerful interests vested in peace!

Gina Hortance