Business Community
We are in the midst of a new, industrial revolution with more than 80 percent of trade taking place outside our country’s borders. We need to fight for our share of the market. Our state’s commitment to exporting and foreign direct investment is essential to the continued economic strength and vitality of our communities and our state. The University of Tennessee, together with our partners in the Global Business Center, is leading the new, knowledge-based industrial revolution. The knowledge critical to success in the new industrial revolution is competency in the global marketplace.
In its 2004 report on the future of the South, “The Globally Competitive South Under Construction,” the Global Strategies Council reported that “the difference between what the region actually exports and what the South would export if our performance as a region were at the national average was $28 billion in 2001. Closing the gap in that year would have created approximately 382,000 more jobs in the Southern economy.”