CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING
NEWS VOLUME
38,
NUMBER
i9 The Chemical World This Week
MAY 9,
1960
Government Launches Drive to Expand Exports Reveals plans to double the number of commercial attachés overseas and expand credit services to exporters The Eisenhower Administration is getting set to prod the U.S. export curve upward. Before the Senate Foreign and Interstate Commerce Committee, representatives of the Commerce Department and the Export-Import Bank outlined plans for promoting sales of U.S. products abroad. Secretary of Commerce Frederick H. Mueller told the committee that
the sellers' market for U.S. products that existed for the first decade after World War II is "definitely and finally over." He said U.S. business must go to work in world markets with the same drive and skill it displays at home. To help U.S. business in world markets, his department wants to embark on a new trade promotion program.
Behind the new drive are several developments: the resurgence of western Europe and Japan in world trade, the trend toward common markets, the Soviet trade offensive, and the growing deficit in the U.S. balance of payments (see chart). One element of the program will be a doubling of the present 120 commercial officers at U.S. posts abroad. The
Dollar Outflow Draws Concern 30
25
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
In 1959, for the second year in a row, the U.S. paid out some $3 billion more to foreign countries than it received from them. The most direct way to cut the deficit down to a more comfortable figure seems to be export expansion. To cut imports, foreign economic aid, or military spending overseas (the big items on the payments ledger) would mean a reversal of long range policies aimed at economic growth and military security for the free world
20
15
10
0 1951-53 Average
1954-56 Average
1957
1959
1958
1960*
> Estimate for 1960 by Dr. Richard N. Gardner, Columbia University
MAY
9,
1960
C&EN
19
Senators were favorable to this plan, but they want the positions to be transferred from the State Department's Secretary authority to Commerce. Mueller said the transfer at this time would only delay the export promotion program. Senator Frank J. Lausche (D.-Ohio) said the U.S. now has only four commercial attachés on the whole continent of Africa. It was brought out that our most formidable competitors have many more commercial officers abroad. The British government has about 50 people in the U.S. promoting British wares. Bradley Fisk, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Affairs, told the committee that Commerce and State are working together to develop training programs for foreign service officers assigned to commercial work. This month, he said, the two departments will start pilot operations at two posts to test the potential generated by all-out trade promotion. The two posts—one in an industrially advanced country and the other in a newly developing one—are in Dusseldorf, Germany, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. Another experiment will be the start-up next January of trade centers in London and Bangkok, Thailand, where U.S. companies will «have a chance to display their wares on a constantly changing basis. If they create interest, such displays will be used in other countries also. Commerce also wants to hold clinics in this country to teach businessmen the techniques of foreign trade. The Senators were particularly interested in export financing. Senator A. S. Mike Monroney (D.-Okla.) stated that U.S. exporters are being beaten out of world markets in almost every case by credit. Most countries insure their exporters against loss on exports, he said. With this insurance, exporters can get financing in commercial banks with a minimum of delay. To help meet the competition in credit, U.S. exporters will get two new services from the Export-Import Bank. Samuel C. Waugh, chairman of the bank's board, said the bank will protect the exporter against .political risks on sales involving credit of not more than 180 days to the extent of 90% of the invoice. On credit for not more than five years, exporters will have a choice of several plans: direct financing, insurance against political and commercial risks, or insurance against political risks only. 20
C&EN
M A Y 9, 1 9 6 0
Basic Basic Research Research Gets Gets Big Share Share of of College College R&D R&DSpending' Spending* (Fiscal (Fiscal 1958)
Field Engineering Physical sciences Life sciences Social sciences Total
Total R&D (millions) $186.4 262.3 251.5 35.6 $735.8
Basic Per Cent Research Spent on (millions) Basic Research $49.1 26.3% 129.9 49.5 155.2 61.7 20.3 56.9 $354.4 48.2%
* Includes money spent by colleges and universities proper, experiment stations, and Federal contract research centers. Source: National Science Foundation
agricultural
Colleges Spend $735.8 Million on R&D New NSF survey shows that colleges spent 80% more on R&D in fiscal 1958 than in fiscal 1954 Preliminary figures just issued by the National Science Foundation show that colleges and universities spent $735.8 million on research and development in fiscal 1958. The figure is 80% higher than the 1954 total of $409.7 million. Biggest spenders of the educational institutions , R&D money, says the new survey, were colleges and universities proper. They spent $327.5 million, while agricultural experiment stations (including schools of agriculture) spent $119.2 million, and Federal contract research centers spent the remaining $289.1 million. Federal contract research centers include such projects as Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Basic Research. Almost half, 4 8 % , of the $735.8 million R&D bill went for basic research. The remaining 52% was spent on applied research and development—34% for applied research and 18% for development work. Colleges and universities proper were more oriented toward basic research than either contract research centers or agricultural experiment stations. Of the $327.5 million spent by colleges and universities proper, a big 74% went for basic research. Basic research accounted for 3 5 % of the $119.2 million spent by agricultural experiment stations and 24% of the $289.1 million spent by contract research centers.
Largest amount of money spent on R&D by colleges and universities proper was in the life science field. Their total R&D expenditure for life sciences ïn fiscal 1958 reached $139.5 million, of whioh $111.2 million went for basic research. Other fields of research in which colleges and universities proper spent substantial sums of R&D money are: engineering, $66.1 million (52.8% of which went for basic research); physical sciences, $98.6 million (79.8% for basic research); and social sciences, $23.4 million (76.6% for basic research). The Money. The Federal government furnishes most of the money spent by educational institutions on R&D-$537.8 million in fiscal 1958 compared with $285.2 million in fiscal 1954. Nonfederal funds, however, did increase slightly—from $124.5 million in 1954 to $198.1 million in fiscal 1958. According to NSF, colleges and universities proper received 69% of their total R&D money from the Federal Government in fiscal 1958. Other sources of support were: institutions' own funds (12%); foundations ( 1 1 % ) ; industry ( 8 % ) ; miscellaneous ( 2 % ) . A significant trend, says NSF, is the growth of the institutions' own funds (including state and local government funds) as a source of support for R&D. Institutions' own funds reached $40.9 million in fiscal 1958, more than twice the amount for fiscal 1954.
