Despite all the hand-wringing about the U.S. trade deficit that posted an 18-month peak earlier this month as the value of imports surged and exports nationwide have been bumping along or sinking into the negative, Utah has been quietly holding its own.
"And it has three of the top 10 metro areas in our study that appear to be the beams of a new economic era that could shoulder in a new wave of jobs and innovation," said Mark Muro, a co-author of a Brookings Institution report released today stating that the Mountain West, and Salt Lake metro areas in particular, could well be the new home of national export growth and the new hope for global competition.
"Thinking exports and global markets is second nature to Utah for a number of reasons; it's part of the area's DNA at this point," Muro said in a telephone interview last week. "What our research has found in the midst of the long but now dwindling real estate-driven economy, filling a growing demand for exports will create thousands of new, good-paying jobs and could well be the new sustainable economy." The Deseret News
