Invest Buffalo Niagara’s efforts to target foreign direct investment opportunities continued full-throttle last week at SelectUSA’s 2016 Investment Summit in Washington, DC.
SelectUSA is a federal initiative tasked with facilitating foreign business investment opportunities and raising awareness of the role foreign direct investment plays in the overall domestic economy. Foreign direct investment influence on the United States’ economy is massive; economists from the US Department of Commerce Office of Trade and Economic Analysis estimate that approximately 12 million jobs nation-wide are directly associated with foreign direct investment. Locally, Invest Buffalo Niagara has assisted 58 foreign-owned companies establish operations in the region creating nearly 2,200 new jobs and investing approximately $798,000,000 since 2010.
The Investment Summit is SelectUSA’s marquee event promoting foreign direct investment in the United States. This year’s gathering welcomed over 2,400 participants from 70 countries. The Invest Buffalo Niagara team, President/CEO Tom Kucharski, Vice-Chair Douglas Dimitroff, and I, met with dozens of companies seeking to expand their businesses into the United States at the “New York State of Opportunity” booth facilitated by our partners at Empire State Development.
Additionally, Invest Buffalo Niagara’s business attraction efforts were discussed with New York State Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul and The Buffalo News’ Washington Bureau Chief Jerry Zremski. Summit participants also heard from key federal officials, mostly notably President Barack Obama, and participated in breakout sessions, including “Welcome to the United States: Visas and Beyond” on which Invest Buffalo Niagara President/CEO Tom Kucharski was a panelist.
Our mission is to help grow our local economy and bring new jobs and capital investment to the region. We will continue to work with foreign direct investment opportunities from around the world to help them expand their businesses into Western New York.