Kansas

Kansas Exports & Foreign Investment

 

In 2023, Kansas exported a record $14.1 billion of goods to the world.  In 2021, exports from Kansas supported an estimated 65 thousand jobs.

 

Exports from Kansas and Jobs

• Kansas was the 31^st largest state exporter of goods in 2023.
• In 2023, Kansas goods exports were $14.1 billion, an increase of 14 percent ($1.7 billion) from its export level in 2013 (latest data available).
• Goods exports accounted for 6.3 percent of Kansas GDP in 2023 (latest data available).
• Kansas goods exports in 2021 (latest data available) supported an estimated 65 thousand jobs. Nationally, jobs supported by goods exports pay up to an estimated 18 percent above the national average.

Manufacturing Exports from Kansas and Jobs

• In 2023, Kansas exported $12.2 billion of manufactured products.
• Kansas exports of manufactured products supported an estimated 38 thousand jobs in 2021 (latest data available).
• The state's largest manufacturing export category is transportation equipment, which accounted for $3.3 billion of Kansas's total goods exports in 2023.
• Other top manufacturing exports are food and kindred products ($3.2 billion), computer and electronic products ($1.4 billion), chemicals ($1.3 billion), and machinery, except electrical ($1.3 billion).

 

Exports Sustain Thousands of Kansas Businesses many of which are SMEs

• A total of 3,371 companies exported from Kansas locations in 2022 (latest data available). Of those, 2,814 (84 percent) were small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.
•  Small and medium-sized firms generated 21.2 percent of Kansas's total exports of goods in 2022.

 

Kansas Depends on World Markets

• The state’s largest market was Mexico. Kansas exported $3.0 billion in goods to Mexico in 2023, representing 21 percent of the state’s total goods exports.
• Mexico was followed by Canada ($2.6 billion), Japan ($941 million), China ($848 million), and Germany ($524 million).
• Kansas’s exports to major world areas included:

 

• 52 percent of Kansas’s goods exports ($7.3 billion) in 2023 went to current FTA partners. 

Agriculture in Kansas depends on Exports

• Kansas is the country’s 8^th largest agricultural exporting state, shipping $7.2 billion in domestic agricultural exports abroad in 2022 (latest data available according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture).^[1]
• Top Agricultural exports were:

 

International Investment Creates Jobs in Kansas

• In 2021 (latest data available), foreign-controlled companies employed 74,600 Kansas workers. Major sources of foreign investment in Kansas included Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom.
• Foreign investment in Kansas was responsible for 6.5 percent of the state's total private-industry employment in 2021.

Kansas’s Major Metropolitan Areas Benefit from Exporting

In 2022 (latest data available), the following metropolitan areas in Kansas recorded goods exports: Wichita ($4.6 billion), Topeka ($417.6 million), Manhattan ($95.1 million), and Lawrence ($84.2 million).