Louisiana Economic Development was awarded a grant of $200,000 by the U.S. Small Business Administration to help small businesses who need to market their goods and services to foreign clients. The Grant is from the State Trade Expansion Program (STEP), a program initiated to assist small businesses in accessing the necessary information and resources needed for them to excel in export trade.
Louisiana Economic Development (LED) will disburse the grants to increase the number of small business exporters and the sales of successful exporters in Louisiana. LED is one of the forty-one state and U.S. territory agencies partaking in the federal program for the year 2019-2021 program cycle.
The program will repay allowable travel, registration and exhibit cost on the following: domestic or foreign trade shows; inbound or outbound trade missions; participation in export training workshops; U.S. Commercial Service user fees; and other activities. New-to-export companies will get up to 75% repayment, and companies expanding their market will get up to 50% reimbursement. Each company will get up to $6,333 in assistance from the program.
Earlier this year, through the help of STEP grants American Pollution Control Corp., an environmental remediation company based in New Iberia, Louisiana, participated in International Trade Shows in Cairo, Egypt, and Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico.
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