• A dedicated trade and investment manager at WTC San Diego to support company participants in deploying overseas strategies during the grant period
• Access to workshops that address export compliance, financing and fundraising and global marketing
• Reduced airfare on the Japan Airlines direct flight from San Diego to Tokyo
• Free access to SYSTRAN software for website translation and customer service needs
• Consideration to compete for an additional $35,000 during the MetroConnect Grand Prize Pitchfest in November 2016

The expanded MetroConnect Program is made possible by JPMorgan Chase, a company committed to helping San Diego reach its full economic potential.

1. Aurora Spine
2. AVACEN Medical
3. Calbiotech
4. Deering Banjo Company
5. ElliptiGO, Inc.
6. GroundMetrics
7. Hyperikon
8. INOVA Drone
9. MANTA Instruments Inc.
10. Ocean Aero
11. Ocean Reef
12. Rough Draft Brewing Company
13. Solatube Worldwide Sales
14. VaultRMS
15. Whova

This week, World Trade Center San Diego traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the SelectUSA Summit.

For the first time ever, San Diego had an organized and coordinated effort for the nation’s foreign investment summit. In partnership with the City of San Diego and the City of Chula Vista, San Diego hosted a booth that attracted nearly 40 international companies and investors that communicated interest in the San Diego region. Their interests ranged from learning about the city’s concentration of innovation-based industries, San Diego’s climate action plan and additional details on the local talent pool. While quantifiable value is still be determined, the overall experience by the San Diego delegation was incredibly positive and we’re all in agreement that SelectUSA did a top notch job.

The summit hosted more than 2,400 visitors from 70 international markets, including some of San Diego’s priority markets – Japan, China, Germany, Canada and more. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a key tenant of the work WTC San Diego undertakes, especially as it tends to increase the research & development funding of a region (great when your region’s R&D efforts contribute more than $14 billion), pay employees better wages/salaries (great when your region’s pay is already competitive for its employed citizens) and can fill key capital gaps of a region (which enhances the fact that  San Diego receives the 4^th highest amount per capita of venture capital in the software industry).

Staying on the topic of foreign investment, WTC San Diego’s executive director Nikia Clarke attended the inaugural meeting of the Investment Advisory Council (IAC). The IAC is a group of key foreign and domestic business leaders that will advise Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and the U.S. Department of Commerce on policies that will enable the government to ensure foreign investment flows into the U.S. economy. In an ever increasing global economy, where FDI is shifting from  advanced economies to emerging and from big business to small- and medium-sized enterprises, it has become apparent that the U.S. – both from a national and a local level – needs to proactively market and attract foreign investment. The IAC will meet over the next two years in order to advise the current administration and help streamline the transition into the new one.

Finally, we couldn’t have had the presence we did at SelectUSA without the help and success of our key local companies. To that effect, we want to thank Stone Brewing Co. for its incredible work in promoting the San Diego craft beer industry. Using their beer at the private reception WTCSD and the City of San Diego hosted on Monday night, we attracted more than 50 investors and educated them on the San Diego region’s offerings by allowing attendees to experience a little of our quality of life – craft beer (IPA’s of course) and sliders.

This week, the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority announced a new seasonal service between San Diego and Frankfurt, Germany. The new flight – operated by Condor Airlines – will provide the only nonstop connection between San Diego and Continental Europe.

EDC and World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD) worked in partnership with the San Diego Tourism Authority to support the efforts of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority to bring Condor Airlines’ direct daily service to Frankfurt.

New international route service is a core priority of the newly relaunched WTCSD and EDC’s global competitiveness interests. Making the business case, the EDC and WTCSD team prepared a package of materials, including research related to economic ties between both Germany and San Diego, and a series of case studies of German-owned firms operating in the San Diego region and a compilation of San Diego-based companies operating in Germany.

Key economic figures include:

• In 2015, Germany ranked as the 4^th largest source of foreign employment in San Diego, with more than 4,368 jobs in San Diego tied to German-owned businesses.
• German companies such as Taylormade (Adidas), Kontron and Siemens all have locations in San Diego.
• Germany is a top destination for San Diego exports, especially in the machinery, electronics and precision instruments industries.
• Over the last decade, German companies have invested more than 300 million in new projects in our region, making Germany one of our top three largest greenfield investors.  
• San Diego companies across diverse industries are targeting Germany, as seen with Stone Brewing Co.’s brewery in Berlin opening in late 2016.

Upon meeting with the Condor team, EDC prepared and delivered a presentation outlining the growing interests between Germany and San Diego. In the weeks following the presentation, EDC answered a series of follow up questions and requests from the Condor Airlines route planning division to help secure its commitment to San Diego.

“As one of San Diego’s top partners for exports and foreign investment, Germany is fast becoming one of our economy’s most important international markets,” said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of San Diego Regional EDC. “Condor’s new direct flight will now link San Diego to one of Europe’s most important economic and cultural hubs.”

Condor will begin service in May 2017 with up to three weekly flights on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The route will operate on a Boeing 767-300ER aircraft and offer three classes of service: Business Class, Premium Class and Economy Class. Flights can now be booked online at http://www.condor.com/. 

First, Germany. Now, Switzerland. Q2 was chock-full of global wins for San Diego. The San Diego International Airport recently announced a new nonstop service to Zurich, Switzerland. Edelweiss, a Swiss leisure carrier owned by the German airline Lufthansa, will operate flights between the two cities on Mondays and Fridays starting in 2017.

As part of EDC’s efforts to increase San Diego’s global competitiveness, EDC and World Trade Center San Diego (WTC San Diego) worked in partnership with the San Diego Tourism Authority to support the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority in bringing Edelweiss’ nonstop seasonal service to Switzerland. Making the case for San Diego, WTC San Diego provided data and research on economic ties to the European innovation hub.

 Why Switzerland matters to San Diego:

• Switzerland ranks third among all nations for the most foreign employment in San Diego.
• Swiss companies such as Novartis and Genentech call San Diego their home.
• In 2011, more than 50 percent of all Swiss employment entered San Diego through M&A activity.

Airport Authority CEO Thella Bowens said that with the addition of the flight, San Diego will have direct service to six countries and add to the list of foreign airlines operating out of Lindbergh Field.

By Nikia Clarke, Director, World Trade Center San Diego

WTC San Diego is on the road again, with a focus on deepening channels of connectivity between global cities around trade, investment, innovation and thought leadership (as well as herring, it turns out).

I spent last week in Stockholm, Sweden, participating in a Brookings/JPMorgan Chase Global Cities Forum. San Diego joined the Global Cities Initiative (GCI) almost four years ago, led by WTC San Diego founding partners—the City of San Diego, San Diego International Airport and the Port of San Diego—and followed by more than 30 other metros. Stockholm is now joining the GCI and drafting its own internationalization strategy. Together with four other GCI representatives, I spoke on panels and participated in working groups convened by Brookings, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and CONNECT Sweden to share San Diego’s experience of building a data-driven trade and investment strategy backed by a regional coalition of partners.

And, as is always the case with these Brookings Metro Exchanges, it’s a wonderful opportunity to learn from our peer cities. Philadelphia’s Economy League, together with their very active WTC, just launched a regional export plan, leveraging service provider networks to reach exporting firms. In London, the Mayor’s office and London & Partners are linking with private sector multinationals to create opportunities for 800 SMEs in new markets. Minneapolis-St. Paul has built strong regional economic development infrastructure that drives significant foreign investment to their bi-city region. World Business Chicago has been leading an effort among dozens of counties to move from competition to collaboration in a metro region that is one of the country’s largest foreign investment destinations.

At the close of the forum, the Chamber—along with the Mayor, Governor, Airport Authority and other public and private sector senior leadership from the region—launched Team Stockholm to drive the effort forward. As the CEO of AstraZeneca—an English-Swedish firm that is the seventh largest pharmaceutical company in the world—spoke to the group about the importance of global connectivity, on the other side of the world, his company inked a deal with San Diego’s Human Longevity Inc. to sequence more than 500,000 genomes and analyze samples from clinical trials. Indeed, competitiveness is all about connectivity.

So how do we continue to grow this kind of connectivity here in San Diego? Turns out Stockholm is the perfect place to reflect on this question, which is why innovation economy experts, like our own Mary Walshok, have been building linkages between our two regions for decades. Stockholm and San Diego have a lot in common: we are both metro regions of 2-3 million with world-class research ecosystems, strong life sciences, telecomm and technology sectors and we happen to be two of the top three most patent intense regions in the world. It is why as you drive down the road you see big names in our region that are also big names in Sweden: Thermo Fisher, Kyocera, Trinity Biotech, Ericsson, JLabs among others.

And in both our cities, so much of the innovation ecosystem is driven by SMEs—which in both San Diego and Stockholm make up around 95 percent of all companies—and the ways in which they are able to engage with large firms and global networks. I visited a number of the institutions that incubate, accelerate and commercialize technology in the region and there is much we can learn from Stockholm.

The Karolinska Innovation Institute spins life sciences and pharmaceutical discoveries out of the university research hospital. Sting—a city-university-private sector collaboration that runs a network of incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces in the region—is launching a new digital health accelerator program that will launch firms into international markets.

EpiCentre is an innovation house founded as a temporary experiment in a downtown high rise awaiting redevelopment last year. Now it has 600 members—large tech corporates, entrepreneurs and everything in between—who run incubators, accelerators, hackathons and labs. As companies grow and scale they move through the flexible, diverse office spaces throughout the building. It will anchor plans for an expansive downtown redevelopment with hotels, restaurants and office space all linked by aerial walkways. Too cool, right?

I had the opportunity to continue these conversations with a brief stopover in London on the way home to visit co-working spaces, tech hubs and San Diego company Cubic’s new transit innovation centre. Cubic already moves 10 million people around London every day as the operator of the Underground’s oyster card payment system. But here they are working with universities, transport providers and entrepreneurs on what’s next for the ever smarter, safer cities of tomorrow? (hint: it might involve talking holograms and buying your ticket with the veins in your hand

One of WTC San Diego’s primary mandates is to grow opportunities both for local firms in overseas markets, and for foreign ones investing in our region. To this end we’ve spoken with more than 400 investors in Japan, taken a group of water tech companies to England and France and are about to select our 2016 cohort of MetroConnect firms. As we reflect on what’s next for our region in terms of boosting our global competitiveness, it is clear that international innovation networks are critical. Certainly some great lessons were taken from this trip: creating great spaces, collaborating with diverse partners and being a little wild and very flexible.

As always, at each stop we were sure to leave behind one of San Diego’s best exports: Stone Brewing Co. craft beer—this time the Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. No wonder they like us.

Cheers to Stockholm and London, and see you soon, San Diego. 

Joining forces to make a binational push to promote innovation, trade and jobs within the San Diego-Tijuana Mega Region, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Tijuana Mayor Jorge Astiazarán welcomed more than 50 high-level leaders from Brazil, Mexico, Canada and South Korea and other countries from across the globe to San Diego for the Fifth Americas Competiveness Exchange (ACE V).

Organized by the World Trade Center San Diego, U.S. Department of Commerce and the Organization of American States, ACE V – a three-day tour of San Diego – made stops at iboss, Qualcomm, UC San Diego and more. As part of the visit, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the participating countries signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) to support initiatives that promote trade and investment partnerships, stimulate job creation and eliminate barriers to commerce.

“We’re proud of the role that we’re playing in fostering innovation, collaboration and technology. It’s part of the DNA of what’s happening here in San Diego,” said San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “This is in fact part of what I think makes this region special, when we talk about the relationship that we have for investment, for our business communities, for our start-up communities. You will not find a region that collaborates better than this region.”