PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island exports grew by 23.6 percent in February when compared with a year earlier, according to seasonally adjusted data from e-forecasting.com.
Exports grew to $197.2 million in February from $159.6 million seen in the same month 2010. When comparing February to January, exports grew by 2 percent.
Manufactured goods, accounting for 59 percent of all foreign sales, surged 26.7 percent in February to $115.9 million from $91.5 million a year earlier. Nonmanufactured goods exports – agricultural goods, mining products and re-exports – increased 19.4 percent to $81.3 million from $68.1 million a year earlier.
Rhode Island, at 15.9 percent, ranked 29th in export growth among the fifty states in the first two months of the year.
Nationally, the U.S. exports rose to $211 billion in the first two months of 2011, or 18.7 percent more than the same period last year.
“The monthly numbers for 2011 indicate that American foreign sales continue their rapid expansion helped by the global recovery and most importantly by the low value of the dollar, which makes American goods less expensive to foreigners,” said Evangelos Simos, chief economist at e-forecasting.com.
He also noted that the World Trade Organization has forecasted continued growth in global trade at a slower pace in 2011.
“The projections suggest that Rhode Island companies will continue to receive higher volumes of export orders from foreign buyers this year,” he said.
