Maine exports faring better than average

PORTLAND – Maine exports are doing well at a time when U.S. exports in general are slumping.

In the quarter after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Maine’s total exports actually increased by $28 million, or 6.3 percent, while regional and national exports declined dramatically.

In the first quarter of this year, Maine’s exports dropped 1.4 percent, but that was far less than the 15 percent downturn nationally, or the 21 percent slide among other New England states.

“We’re bucking the national trend,” said Richard Coyle, president of the Maine International Trade Center.

The state does nearly $1.9 billion in export business annually – a 73 percent increase since 1993 – and international trade amounts to about 5 percent of Maine’s gross state product.

If Maine exports have suffered at all since Sept. 11, it’s because of the economic uncertainty, said Perry Newman, a principal at Atlantica Group, an international business development firm in Portland.

Richard Donaldson, spokesman for L.L. Bean, agreed.

“I do know that certain countries, in light of the concern about terrorism, are slower to handle mailings,” Donaldson said. “But the challenge we’re presented with is more the economy.”

Maine’s chief trading partner continues to be Canada, which last year bought $846 million worth of Maine products, from paper and wood products to computer parts and livestock -a 39 percent increase over 1997.