Earlier this afternoon Ambassador Kirk met with Glen Raven Textile Plant executives and workers to discuss the President's National Export Initiative in Anderson, South Carolina. This new initiative will help support two million jobs by doubling exports over the next five years. During his time at Glen Raven, Ambassador Kirk toured the plant and discussed how businesses in South Carolina can benefit from international trade.
Glen Raven, founded in 1880, began as a small cotton mill in North Carolina and is now a successful leader across the globe in fabrics. Glen Raven works to design, engineer and market fabrics for existing and new products for businesses across the world. Glen Raven currently exports almost every fabric-based product that they make, such as automotive car tops for convertibles, marine fabrics for sailing, furniture upholstery fabric, and military defense fabric for boots. Glen Raven serves businesses in North and South America, Europe and Asia as it continues to grow to become a leader in the textile industry.
As USTR works to open markets around the world, businesses like Glen Raven can continue to grow through exports, supporting well-paying jobs for workers right in South Carolina. As President Obama and Ambassador Kirk have said, this kind of export-supported job growth is critical to America's economic recovery.
More than a quarter of a million U.S. firms export goods, 3,575 of them in South Carolina, and more than 80 percent of those were small- or medium-sized firms with fewer than 500 employees. In fact, more than one-quarter (29%) of all manufacturing workers in South Carolina depend on exports for their jobs, the third-highest percentage among all fifty states. And export-supported jobs linked to manufacturing accounted for an estimated 9.3 percent of all private-sector employment in South Carolina, the second-highest percentage among all fifty states.
The President's National Export Initiative will continue to help businesses like Glen Raven hire more workers and grow.
Ambassador Kirk and Glen Raven CEO Allen Grant tour the textile plant
