BANGOR – Small businesses are looking for ways out of Maine, but not necessarily in terms of relocating.

Exports are increasing for Maine’s small firms and are likely to continue to expand in the future, according to Wes Coulam, staff director of the U.S. Senate Small Business Committee.

Maine’s small businesses exported $2.19 billion worth of goods in 2003, which is approximately $200 million more than they exported in 2002, Coulam said Wednesday.

For the first quarter of 2004, $758 million worth of goods were exported by the state’s small businesses. This is $273 million more than was exported for the corresponding period of 2003, he said.

“Yes, it is growing,” Coulam said. “Maine’s economy has a strong reliance on exports.”

To help small businesses understand what international opportunities may exist, a forum was held last week at Husson College’s Richard E. Dyke Center for Family Business.

Coulam said approximately 70 people attended the event and that organizers hope to schedule another such forum in the area sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Charles Summers, regional administrator for U.S. Small Business Administration, was one of the officials on hand at the forum to help provide information on how local businesses can tap into foreign markets.

Besides Summers, officials from the Export-Import Bank of the United states, U.S. Department of Commerce and Overseas Private Investment Corp. attended the event.

The forum was sponsored by the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which is chaired by Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

In an interview last week, Summers said small businesses in Maine make up 97 percent of all the businesses in the state. Besides looking for international opportunities, he said, small businesses in Maine have other options for trying to grow or improve.

Some of those options include services that are available from SBA free of charge, he said.

“People don’t realize these services are there at no cost,” Summers said. “They think they have to pay for it.”

Besides guaranteeing loans, SBA can help small-business owners draft business plans and, through the SCORE program, can help provide them with free and confidential business advice, Summers said.

Among other things, the agency also can help facilitate loans to small businesses for acquiring fixed assets such as buildings and land, according to the SBA official. The so-called “504” loan program is one program of which small-business owners could take better advantage, he said.

“I really think the 504 program is underutilized,” Summer said. “The usage [of SBA programs in Maine] is very good, but it can always be better.”

The agency also supports Snowe’s proposal to create associated health plans, or AHPs, that would allow small businesses across the country to band together to buy health care coverage for their employees, he said.

The agency has streamlined its services by taking steps such as accepting paperwork from banks and cutting back on its own, according to Summers. As a result, it has been able to become a smaller, more efficient entity over the past decade or so, he said.

“Small-business people have obstacle after obstacle after obstacle in front of them,” Summers said. “We don’t want to be one of those obstacles.”