BOSTON – Deputy United States Trade Representative Jayme White and Her Majesty's Trade Commissioner for North America Emma Wade-Smith today opened the 5th U.S.-UK Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) Dialogue. They were joined by the Small Business Administration’s Associate Administrator for International Trade Gabriel Esparza, U.S. Commercial Service Northeast Regional Director James Cox, and British Consul General Peter Abbott.
"Small businesses are the engines of the economy in the United States, the UK, and around the world,” Ambassador White said. “As we engaged with small businesses over the last year, one theme that came up over and over is the immense role that they play in supporting inclusive and sustainable economic growth.”
The SME Dialogue is convened by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Small Business Administration, the UK Department for International Trade, and the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Established in 2018 in Washington, D.C. and London, and convening subsequently in New York City and Bristol, the U.S.-UK SME Dialogue is an ongoing exchange bringing small and medium businesses and stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic together with government officials to identify ways to strengthen cooperation on issues of mutual interest to SMEs.
This Dialogue is co-hosted by the U.S. Commercial Service/U.S. Department of Commerce in Boston, the Massachusetts Export Center/Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network, the British Embassy, and the UK Consulate in Boston.
The discussion focused on opportunities for U.S.-UK SME trade and cooperation in emerging technologies; best practices for U.S. and UK companies; access to capital for SMEs; and trade resources for small businesses.
Ninety-two percent of U.S. exporters to the UK are small- and medium-sized firms, with nearly 36,000 small businesses across the fifty states exporting $23.2 billion in goods to the United Kingdom.
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