Small businesses in Kentucky are getting a boost with financial investment advice and more from the state’s Cabinet for Economic Development (CED) next month. The agency has hopes that local businesses will leave the “Kentucky: Here We Grow” seminar more able to market themselves far beyond the local community – one initiative is to help Kentucky’s small businesses reach customers all over the globe.
Building beyond borders
Cabinet Secretary Larry Hayes told The Independent that the ability of the government to help small businesses expand beyond state and even national borders is crucial to the economic development of his state.
“Most large companies have the resources and expertise to market overseas, but these grants are designed to help the smaller companies sell their Kentucky-made products to the world. The result is increased sales and business growth, which means more jobs, in turn making a stronger economy for all of us,” he said.
Hayes claims small business makes up roughly 90 percent of all companies in Kentucky, the news source reports, and those operations have already shown improvement in international market reach. The agency tracked 9.9 percent growth in exports out of Kentucky last year – a total monetary value of $18.4 billion as reported by The Independent. The CED hopes its afternoon seminar, planned for March 21, will open entrepreneurial eyes of all ages and experiences to what the Cabinet offers its businesses in terms of growth assistance.
Borrowing may be a trend of the past
Entrepreneurs today need all the help they can get in raising capital, as a recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) survey shows a continued decline in bank assets allotted to small business loans over the past nearly-20 years.
Small Business Trends offers several reasons for the drop in loans of this nature: The magazine argues that increased contention between big banks, tighter lending standards, and a general shift to small bank loans within the small business community take most of the responsibility in this falling trend over the past 18 years.
While the competition between major national banks may be perceived as negative, the shift to small banking is quite positive for local organizations – an increase in lending from community banks, although it produces less immediate financial impact, is a sure way to benefit financial services like private banks, credit unions and even short term lending businesses used and run by neighbors.