Trade Centers Moving to Santa Ana Hub
Santa Ana is continuing its push to consolidate Orange County’s international trade offices at its 900 N. Broadway building, home to Mexico’s first U.S. trade center
The building’s newest tenant: the Santa Ana-based California-Mexico Trade Assistance Center, which is moving into the building’s eighth floor this week.
The trade assistance center, run by Santa Ana’s Rancho Santiago Community College, provides free help to OC importers and exporters as well as those looking to set up or expand production in Mexico. The center works with smaller companies that may not qualify for help from the Commerce Department’s Export Assistance Center in Newport Beach, which helps bigger businesses sell abroad.
“Federal organizations like the Commerce Department often focus chiefly on companies that are export-ready,” said Enrique Perez, trade specialist with the California-Mexico Trade Assistance Center. “Imports are important too, because they help our California clients by providing better suppliers.”
The center now occupies 3,000 square feet at 901 E. Santa Ana Blvd. in Santa Ana, alongside Rancho Santiago’s Center for International Trade Development and Small Business Development Center. All three centers are making the move to the new 5,000-square-foot space at North Broadway.
The California-Mexico Trade Assistance Center, along with 17 other centers throughout California, was started by the state Legislature two years ago and is funded by the state and local community colleges.
“The OC center is probably one of the most active of the 18 centers, mainly because of the county’s diverse business community,” Perez said.
And Mexico is OC’s biggest trading partner. Last year local companies exported about $2 billion worth of products to Mexico, making the country OC’s largest export market, a title once held by Japan.
Most of the center’s clients are non-Hispanic-owned businesses,companies most likely to need help when looking at Mexico.
“We don’t do the official ABCs of trade,” Perez said. “Rather we explain to companies, ‘This is how you work with Mexico.’ We explain cultural differences and how business works differently there.”
Perez said the center provides strategic analysis for companies looking to improve market share, rather than basic trade regulation help.
“We may have companies that already are involved in other markets internationally looking to us for help in getting into the Mexican market,” said Francisco Bertot, director of all of Rancho Santiago’s business services and international programs.
Some of the center’s work has included:
–Coordinating talks between Santa Ana importer Stone Creek Partners Inc. and Chiapas, Mexico-based manufacturers, artisans and entrepreneurs.
—Assisting Watkins-Baile and Associates, an Irvine investment and architectural firm, in talks with Colima, Mexico, officials for a port development.
–Helping Costa Mesa’s Kawabunga Coolers establish a manufacturing contractor in Mexicali.
–Working with a county parachute manufacturer to establish a plant in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala.
–Helping a distributor of cable TV products open a sales and assembly plant in Mexicali that will begin operations shortly.
Perez and Bertot both promote the trade center through networking at trade events, and through referrals from the Santa Ana-based Orange County Office of Protocol and the Commerce Department’s Export Assistance Center.
Perez is the trade center’s only official staff member and also works as a trade specialist for Rancho Santiago’s Center for International Trade Development, which provides non-Mexico trade consulting services.
“We don’t really need a lot of employees because, for example, if a company needs legal assistance then we work with various attorneys here,” Perez said. “So we don’t have to do everything ourselves,we use all the resources available.”
Other California-Mexico trade centers include sites in Long Beach, Torrance, Riverside, Pomona and San Diego.
Bertot has developed programs for the American Chamber of Commerce in Budapest, Hungary,the first such chamber in the region. Before moving to OC, he served as the director of the Center for International Business Education for Daytona Community College in Florida.
Previously, Perez was an economic development aide to Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, where he worked on global programs and projects. He’s pursuing a law degree at Costa Mesa-based Whittier Law School with an emphasis on corporate international law. n
