Portland-area plan: Double exports in five years, create 113,000 jobs
Business and political leaders are moving ahead with a plan inspired by a national think tank to create more than 113,000 jobs across the Portland area by doubling exports in five years.
Co-chairs Tom Hughes, Metro Council president, and Jill Eiland, Intel Northwest corporate affairs manager, presented the initiative in its greatest detail to date on Tuesday at an export conference in Portland. They described a dizzying array of work groups, tasks, goals and measurable outcomes designed to help boost the Portland region's annual exports from $21 billion to $42 billion, with each additional billion dollars in foreign sales expected to yield 5,400 jobs.
"It's not just us selling each other microbrews," said Hughes, a former Hillsboro mayor elected to his regional government seat in 2010 on a job-creation platform. "What you really need is a culture where manufacturers or entrepreneurs begin to include foreign markets as part of their business strategy."
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Thousands
Estimates suggest that thousands of permanent, family-wage jobs will be created through project development, with thousands of additional jobs generated in connected and supporting industries.
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