U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker Announces Five Market Development Cooperator Program Award Receipients

WASHINGTON, D.C. – September 9, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the five winners of the Department’s 2015 Market Development Cooperator Program (MDCP) award. The Auto Care Association, Evergreen Building Products Association, the National Center for Healthcare Leadership, NPES: The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies, and the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association received more than $1.4 million in financial and technical assistance from the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration (ITA) to support projects that enhance the global competitiveness of U.S. industries. An MDCP award establishes a partnership between the Commerce Department and non-profit industry groups such as trade associations and chambers of commerce.

“The MDCP awards form important partnerships that assist U.S. firms in selling more of their goods and services to the 96 percent of consumers living outside our borders,” Secretary Pritzker said. “Supporting small and mid-sized American companies to increase exports is an important part of the work of the Department of Commerce and leads to job growth as well as expanded economic opportunity.”

The MDCP awards are designed to reach small and medium-sized enterprises. The non-profit groups compete for a limited number of MDCP awards by proposing innovative projects that generate exports that create or sustain U.S. jobs. Industry groups pledge to pay a minimum of two-thirds of the project cost and to sustain the project after the MDCP award period ends.

This year, the five non-profit industry organizations receiving the award are expected to generate more than $653 million in U.S. exports during the next three years in return for the one-time $1.4 million federal investment. On average, from 1997 through 2014, projects generated $335 in exports for every $1 of MDCP awards made.

Since the MDCP’s inception in 1993, ITA has issued 141 awards to 108 organizations in 32 states. The program has helped to generate more than $9 billion in exports. In an average year, MDCP projects generate $595 million in U.S. exports.

For more information about the Market Development Cooperator Program, please visit www.trade.gov/mdcp.

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