GAO Says Commercial Service Can Do More to Support NEI
The Government Accountability Office has issued a report finding that the Commerce Department's U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service (CS) should improve export success data and its resource allocation management in order to better support the President's National Export Initiative (NEI), which is aimed at doubling the dollar value of U.S. exports by the end of 2014.
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CS experiences underreporting of export successes, etc. -- GAO states some of the measures CS will implement in 2012 to more closely align with the NEI lack a measure to address customer-service satisfaction and the underreporting of export successes (especially with regard to dollar value). GAO states that complete and accurate export success data is necessary so that CS' efforts to support the NEI will not be undervalued and so that policymakers will not have an inaccurate picture of CS' performance.
CS lacks systematic resource allocation model -- CS allocates its resources to more than 75 countries around the world based on various factors. GAO has found that CS does not systematically consider certain important activities when calculating the export potential and cost-benefit ratios used to rank country locations. Limitations within the CS' Overseas Resource Allocation model reduce its ability to reflect key changes in the global economic outlook and, therefore, in potential U.S. exports to various countries. GAO states this reduces the model's usefulness in helping CS make allocation decisions.
(GAO-11-909, dated September 2011)