 This is Think Tech Hawai'i. Community matters here. Hello. Welcome to Exporting from Hawai'i. I'm the host, Rob Hack. And today we have, as our guest, Brenda Foster. She is the chair of the Hawai'i Pacific Export Council, otherwise known as HPEC, and we'll be interviewing her today to talk about what does HPEC do in terms of the local ecosystem in Hawai'i for exporting and talk a bit about Brenda's background. She spent quite a bit of time in China and Taiwan, so we'll go over that in some detail. So with that, let me introduce Brenda from the Hawai'i Pacific Export Council. Can you explain a little bit about what is the Hawai'i Pacific Export Council? Well, thank you very much for having me, Rob. I greatly appreciate it. The Hawai'i Pacific Export Council, or we call HPEC for short, was established in 1973, and it's a nonprofit organization made up of about 30 professional international business individuals, together with exporters who've been appointed by the U.S. Commerce Secretary to assist the U.S. Commerce Department in its mission of exporting U.S. products to overseas markets. Specifically for HPEC, we're involved in helping local companies, i.e. Hawai'i companies, as well as companies from the Pacific Islands or the U.S. Pacific Islands, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, as well as American Samoa, export their products. And we do this in a number of ways. We do mentoring programs, helping companies work together. We work with them on international business plans, their export business plans. We run an education seminar on the exporting process in which we cover a variety of topics, basically the nuts and bolts of exporting that will cover everything from market entry to financing your project, to upscaling, to marketing, to the legal aspects, and also, very importantly, the cultural aspects of doing business. Yeah, I think a lot of people discount the cultural aspects of doing business, but I know in the export university class that HPEC teaches every year, you cover cultural aspects. Are there things that you've learned during your career that Hawai'i companies could pay attention to there? Yes, I think it's extremely important to understand and know the culture of the country you wish to export to. And this is because no one country is the same, their cultures are all different, and they have very unique qualifications to be able to enter their market. And I think it's important to know whether you have to export and market your product in the language of the country, what you would have to do in terms of, I will say, communicating with people, being able to follow up the distribution channels, and also, more importantly, you have to go to the country to walk around to see the people, see what products they're buying, or if your product even has a market niche there so that you could be successful if you decided to export there. You're an expert in China, and a large country like China, there could be cultural differences just between the north and the south, or the east and the west, so you were particularly spent a lot of time in Shanghai. Did you see any differences between working in Shanghai versus working in Beijing if you were an exporter trying to go to one of those markets? I actually didn't. I think what I saw was the size of the market. It was just so massive. And if anything, it would be what products one could have in a more urban market versus maybe the second, third, or fourth tier cities. And those products would be different. Where I did see the issues was on the legal aspects, the contract aspects, and how one does business in various parts of the country, whether it's just on a handshake or whether you really need to have a contract and even if the contract's enforceable, what you would do for arbitration or mediation and being able to just work with the individuals. It was very important in China to have a China partner. I'm sure. We'll come back to China later in the show. For now, let's continue to talk about HPEC. Can you review with us some of the programs that HPEC would be having in this year and how viewers could sign up for some of those activities? Yes. First of all, I would like to say that our program, which is our export training program, is done through a grant that we have received from the Department of Business Economic Development, or DBID, from the state of Hawaii. And that's from monies they've received from the Small Business Administration in the United States. And we think it's been exceptional that they've been able to get funding here for the state from SBA to be able to fund these programs. Our other partners for this are also the SBDC or the Small Business Development Council. And we also have the Patsy Mink Center working with us for leadership and business. And what we do, we get together and we decide what are going to be the programs that a lot of our companies might be interested in. And it has two parts. One, the education and training key programs. So for example, this week we just completed Export U or Export University 101, which was an introduction to marketing, legal aspects, cultural aspects, financing, digital media, and logistics and transportation. So just the highlights of what a company needs to start to be aware of. Going forward, the other programs that we will have would be on upscaling for a market. We're going to focus on some country specific, Korea, and we hope also Australia. We also work with companies on protecting their brand. We'll be doing that program also in April. We're going to do another program on e-commerce. In March, we're going to do one on contracts and do you need lawyers and having lawyers. Also at that time in April, we're going to, I believe in May, we'll look at a program that's going to be getting companies ready for trade shows. The state of Hawaii sponsors numerous trade shows and companies can actually apply for funds to help support, whether it's their booth at the trade fair or traveling to the trade fair or maybe translators that they may need or having their materials put into another language. And then I think also we're going to have in June a program on logistics and transportation. And in August, we're going to do a program that's going to really be in depth on helping companies who already have business plans, but how can they write and develop an export business plan that would help them enter the market? So with all of our partners, we send out a notice in advance of all of our programs that companies can sign up on. It's on the web. Companies could also go to HPEC's website at www.HawaiiSupport.com if they would want to contact us or they could contact you or they could contact HPEC or they could contact D-Bed. We can put them on our mailing list. And we try to promote the program as much as possible through several mailing lists, not only of all of our sponsors, but also through HPEC ourselves. The D-Bed website I know is www.Invest.Hawaii.gov and there's a tab on that website specific to exporting, which I think there's a lot of information there and some HPEC information is on that website as well. May I add one point though? It's very important that if companies are interested in wanting to export that they participate in the training programs because it really provides a lot of information from professionals who've been doing business in various parts of the world, specifically the Asia-Pacific region. And so these are individuals who are running the training programs, who know the market, know the culture, know the distribution channels and really know what it takes to be successful in a market. And most importantly, these programs are free, but we do require that people sign up for them. So we at least know how much coffee or tea or rolls that we can have and that we can plan accordingly for the individuals who want to come and participate. That sounds like a great program. Generally, how many companies are taking part in these seminars? Last year, I think on the mentoring part of the program, we mentored over 60 companies and we had a list, if I'm not mistaken, of 100 and it was around 130 companies, I think last year, around 130 that participate. And what was exciting this year when we had our kickoff program on not only Oahu, but also on the neighbor islands on Kauai, Maui and the Big Island, with our kickoff program, I think we had 40 new companies even on Oahu participating and we were very excited on the neighbor islands. I think Maui, for example, had 12 or 14 companies, people who had not been exporting before and were very much interested in looking for additional markets for their products. That's great. And if a company can't attend these events live, they can join by webinar. Yes. We have set up a webinar. We use Zoom, but they do need to register for the program. And when they register for the program, they can let us know if they're attending in person or if they're going to be, I would call it, teleconferencing in. And then they also, when they teleconference in, they not only see the full presentations, but they also can ask questions of the presenters and people who are there. And HPEC records these meetings and puts them on YouTube, is that right? Yes. We record the meetings. We put them on a YouTube channel. We also have our partners also have them. I think D-Bid has it on their website, SBDC on their website. And on HPEC's website, we have a vast amount of resources also that companies can avail of themselves, not only of the videos, but they can go back and look at the videos from maybe the last year or whatever. But we also do update it so that each year when we do our programs, we want to make sure we're current with the rules, laws and regulations, because we also do pay attention to U.S. trade policy and tariffs issues. And we do look a lot at customs that we have to deal with in each of the countries, which is very important for all the requirements and standards that products need to make. And by customs, you mean tariffs, not cultural customs. I mean tariffs, and I can give examples on some of our companies who've had on the agricultural products they've been exporting. I know with Japan, for example, they want to know down to the smallest percentage of what ingredients are in all of their products. So not only does the U.S. have very strict, say, vital sanitary standards for our products, foreign companies also have theirs, whether it's Japan, Korea, China or whatever. And so companies have to pay attention to that. And one of the benefits of working with HPEC and the professionals we have at HPEC is that so many of us can help on that. But I'd also like to add a plug, if I may, for our major partner, which is the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service in each of the countries. And they're very important, and our Export Assistance Center here, run by John Holman for the U.S. Commerce Department, is extremely helpful for companies in working with them as they want to enter a new market. That's a good segue, because actually John Holman will be on one of these future programs. Excellent. So that's great. Now, he's the only U.S. government employee in the state of Hawaii who's dedicated to exporting. Is that right? As far as I know, yes, because he's the only U.S. Commerce appointee here. We have other government officials here representing the Pacific Islands or what I would call the Insular Areas, State Department, of course DOD and others, but yes. Now, with all of these groups, HPEC, DBET, the Patsy Mink Center, SBDC, Innovate Hawaii, Department of Agriculture, it seems like there's, and others, it seems like there's a very strong infrastructure and ecosystem in Hawaii to support exporting, particularly for companies that are just starting or just wanting to get involved. Do you agree? I absolutely agree. What is special about Hawaii is that we all work together. We work jointly on programs. So for example, a program next week that we are having is with the Hawaii State Department of Agriculture. And that's very important because agricultural products are the top, in the top tier, I'd say the top five or top 10 products that Hawaii exports to overseas markets. Yeah, it is an important source of exports and it's growing. So with that note, we'll take a quick break and we'll be back right after this. Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I'm Ethan Allen, host on Think Tech Hawaii of Pacific Partnerships in Education. Every other Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m., I hope you'll join us as we explore the value, the accomplishments and the challenges of education here in the... Hey, welcome back to Exporting from Hawaii. And once again, we have Brenda Foster, chair of the Hawaii Pacific Export Council. She's with me today to talk about HPEC and also talk about generally exporting and review her experience as the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, which we'll get to in a minute before we leave the topic of HPEC. You mentioned before the break that HPEC has a board. There's people on the board of which I'm one of them. But what do the people on the board... How do they get on the board and then what do they bring to the table for companies that are interested in exporting? How can new companies to exporting or smaller companies who are looking to expand their exporting, how can they get in touch with these board members and solicit their advice? Well, first of all, I would like to say that for getting on HPEC's board, first of all, we're all volunteers. We're international business professionals or exporters, as I previously mentioned. And we are nominated by the export office here and it goes to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. And they review all of the individuals' qualifications, experience in overseas locales, markets, business backgrounds. And then the U.S. Commerce Department decides who they wish to appoint to HPEC here. And so they appoint 30 individuals each year. Well, 30 individuals, we serve staggered terms, four-year terms, but those are staggered terms. So among the 30 individuals, those are staggered. So some are at a new four-year term, others at a two-year term, others will be expiring and then be either reappointed or new individuals will be appointed. Then the expertise that's on the board is very diverse and it's by choice. So we have people, as I mentioned, who've lived overseas, worked overseas. They've worked especially throughout the Asia Pacific region, but not necessarily just in the Asia Pacific region. But we have a lot of expertise for Japan, Korea, China, Southeast Asia, especially Philippines, Singapore. And around and we have companies who've worked in India. I think your company is also represented in India. So we cover South Asia also besides Southeast Asia. We have lawyers who've been involved in international business, international transactions, who've both worked from Hawaii representing companies as well as who've worked overseas. One of our individuals was the general counsel for the Asian Development Bank and worked on numerous programs. We have... There's a past president of American Chamber of Commerce in Korea also. Yes, we have...who also worked for Boeing. So we have that individual. We have academics. The East-West Center is represented with their president. We also have the University of Hawaii and academia represented. And that's important so much because actually Hawaii's largest export, 95% of our export is in the services area. And that comes in tourism and tourism services. And so it's really important we have the people who are involved in that also involved in HPEC. We have marketing individuals and then we have individuals who are entrepreneurs who have started their own businesses, been involved in exporting for a number of years and are looking at their own market expansion for their own products. So they're in manufacturing. They might be manufacturing various agricultural products that they would have. Some of them are more consumer type products. We have others in design. And we also have people in financial services. I don't know if I mentioned that. We have people in financial services also involved in our board. It's quite an eclectic mix. So we try to cover all area also logistics and transportation. So for each of the topics that we really cover in our education and training programs, we pretty much have all of those industries or disciplines covered. But we also draw a lot on the community. And if for example we don't have somebody in the community but we're going to a new market, we work with the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service. And because of our teleconferencing, we may bring in an individual from the Commerce Department who's resident in country. For example, last year we did a program on Canada because Canada is a major market that's overlooked I think for a lot of Hawaii companies. And it's an easier market to enter because of the... I speak Canadian. Oh you do? Oh great. It's easy. Thank you. Good English. But what we did is we were able to teleconference in the commercial officer who could give us an excellent introduction to what companies should know if they're going to enter the Canadian market. So we reach out around. We've worked with the Export-Import Bank which is important and also SBA loans for companies. And I think companies wishing to export really need to pay attention to the financing, the loans, the capital loans they might be looking at, but also insurance and insurance for their products and insurance for the agreements they may be entering into. Well that's great. You mentioned Canada which I think is really interesting because a lot of the companies I meet in Hawaii, first and foremost, they think... when they hear the word exporting they think Japan. And Japan is not an easy market from a language standpoint, a culture standpoint, time zone changes and what have you. And I do think Hawaii companies could be better served by at least looking at the Canadian market first. Would you agree or do you have any comment on it? I absolutely agree. I think if I look at markets around the region that companies enter into, I think Japan, Korea and China are at the top of being some of the most difficult markets to enter. And people may think that they understand the cultures of these countries or because they've had some interaction with them before, but when it really comes to entering that country, working in that market, it's extremely difficult. The rules, laws, regulations, the transparency, most of these companies are companies that enter the market need to have people who speak the languages of that country. It can't be done in English. In a lot of ways, even Japan, it cannot be done in Japanese. Korean cannot be done. It needs to be done in Korean and definitely China needs to be done in Chinese if you want to reach the market or have your product reach the market. Absolutely. Let's speak in China. We'll get to that one second. I know that you have some good relationships with the consular core that is here in Honolulu. There's Korea, there's Taiwan, Australia. Are there any others that are here locally? Yes, the consular core is made up of about 35 or 38 consulates. Some are career consulates like Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Micronesias in that. We have several of those. Then we have the honorary consuls who have been appointed by the various countries from around the world. A lot of European countries, Latin America, European, and the rest. We all get together once a month for various programs. We've spoken with them in the past of working together with us. Even with Taiwan, with their representation here, the American Institute on Taiwan is the US equivalent for the Taiwan Economic and Commercial Office. We work with them even on entering the Taiwan market there. That's great. Let's jump ahead to China, talk about China. In the recent administration, there's a lot of talk about China from tariffs and these other things. We can get to that if there's time. For now, let's just talk about companies in Hawaii that are interested to export to China because theoretically, China is the biggest market in the world. At some point, maybe India could be conceivably the biggest market in the world. But for now, China has the largest population. A lot of companies will say, oh, I'd really like to be involved in the China market. You're an expert on China. You spent a long time living in China. Can you tell us briefly about your experience in Shanghai, what you did there as President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai? How long were you there? What were the types of issues you were dealing with in terms of American companies wanting to export to China? It was very challenging, exciting, and you really needed to understand China to enter that market. As the American Chamber of Commerce, we ran a series of programs. We had various industry committees. We had 26 industry committees covering all the major industries. We represented the Fortune 500 companies, as well as small to medium-sized enterprises wishing to enter the market. We worked at length with various US government entities. We worked with the Chinese government entities on rules and laws, regulations, not only in Shanghai, but so many of our companies worked throughout China. So we would work in various locales around China. We also established the Yangtze River Delta area's office, working with companies out there. US companies wanting to expand out there. We worked in the Nanjing area, and I traveled all over China, even out to Xinjiang to talk about doing business and working with American companies. Xinjiang, Xi'an, down in Guangzhou, even though we have other chambers represented in those areas, we would cooperate and work. In addition, because I saw so many SME companies wanting to come into China, originally SME companies were part of the value chain of major corporations that were entering the China market. So they would follow the parents, so to speak, and provide services or products to those Fortune 500 companies. But over time, and while I was there, the SME companies saw that they had a market in and of themselves, separate from being part of that MNC supply chain. So it was working with them, helping them to get their products into the market to be able to upscale enough. So that's why even with Hawaii companies, if you want to enter a market like China, one, you got to make sure that there's actually a market for your product, but two, you're going to need to upscale considerably to be able to be successful, in addition to all of the rules and laws and regulations. During my career, I've been a member of several chambers of commerce, still I'm throughout Asia. At what point would a Hawaii company think about utilizing an American chamber of commerce in one of these markets? Let's say a company was very interested in going to the China market. At what point do they join an Amcham Shanghai? I don't know if they need to join immediately, but if a company is interested in going to China, I recommend, first of all, they take a trip to where they want to go. I mean, I think that's critical, whether it's China or any other country. When you make that first trip, I would make an appointment with the American Chamber of Commerce in that locale. Is that free? That's free. And go in, and it certainly was in Shanghai. And China, it's free. I would go in. I would write to them. I would ask if I could come in and talk with them and just get an idea about the market. And it depends on your industry and your products. Because the chambers of commerce have those. In Shanghai, I established when I was there, a small to medium-sized enterprise center that brought American companies together with Chinese companies. They've since changed the name now to call it the Trade and Investment Center. And that's where you bring in the members because in Shanghai, I had 4,000 members. And so we would bring in members not unlike HPEC and our volunteer board. We would bring in members from our various companies and do briefings for companies, for university students, MBA students, and others to try to educate them about the market and what was currently happening in China and answer any questions. So there's a lot of support from chambers of commerce. Great. And with that, I'd like to thank Brenda for being here. Again, look for Hawaii Pacific Export Council at hawaiasportsupport.com. My name is Rob Hack and this was Exporting from Hawaii. Thank you, Mahalo.