What is Virginia’s biggest foreign export in terms of economic value?
Computer chips, with Qimonda and Micron the biggest players. What services do we export? Intellectual brain power: law, environmental, engineering. A lot of it is defense related and cutting edge. Ahy did exports for Virginia companies grow so dramatically last year? An overarching reason was the decline of the dollar. It was at a record low. What that means practically is that …your goods become less expensive. For instance, the dollar went down 7.5 percent last year, so your product is 7.5 percent cheaper in one year. On the investment side, it makes buying U.S. assets more affordable. It’s going to advance manufacturing. If you rattle off the big announcements in Virginia in the past couple of years, you’ve got Maersk, the marine terminal in Portsmouth; Swedwood IKEA down in Danville; … the Volkswagen [of America] headquarters in Fairfax; Rolls-Royce in Prince George. All those are international, not major U S. companies. What about the effect on the import side? ? It makes imports
