The opening of the Maine International Trade Center office in Bangor today is as important for symbolic reasons as it is for the practical. The center represents an important step forward in telling the world that this part of Maine is eager to do business.

What better way to do that than to begin with Maine’s most important partner, Canada? One of the Bangor center’s first meetings will be of a Canada-Maine working group (scheduled for Sept. 16) to follow up on the contacts made at Co-Entreprise ’97 and boost trade between this state and Quebec. Canada is by far Maine’s largest trading partner, but the center can help businesses with trade to Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, France and many other places.

The center’s cooperative attitude is reflected in its location — within the Eastern Maine Development Center in Bangor. EMDC already has the staff, computer hardware, data bases and conference center to help its new tenant help the region. Gerard Tassel, a native of France who has served as vice president at H.E. Sargent, and Wade Merritt, a trade specialist with the trade center, will serve for now as the office staff.

After a prolonged period of malaise, Maine’s economy has started moving again. The unemployment rate is down. Contractors are busy. The state’s coffers overflowed recently for the first time this decade. So why isn’t everyone singing, “Happy Days Are Here Again”? Because many people know that, even with the flush economy, nothing has really changed in Maine. The state is still vulnerable to whatever happens in southern New England and still likely to be one of the first states into recession and one of the last out.

A vastly broader trading base can help change that. It can allow the state to tap into a far larger pool of customers and cash. It can help the region take control of its destiny instead of being the afterthought of corporations to the south. Combined with the pending Forum Francophone des Affaires, it could help build the critical mass needed for the region to attract a significant number of new businesses.

The trade center has been open in Portland since February, and its membership rolls reflect that. Seventy-five percent of members have come from the southernmost counties. Even accounting for population, that leaves out too many businesses here that could be involved in the international market.

Maine has a lot to offer the world. Furniture, textiles, machinery and computer equipment, paper and a hundred other products make this a state rich in potential, but it remains poor in selling itself. The trade center can make a difference to the state and to this region.