In a report released May 10, DEED indicates record levels of exports in 2011. Exports of agricultural, mining, and manufactured products reached $20.3 billion last year. This beat the previous best of $19.2 billion set in 2008. Three of the top eight regions showed more than a 10% increase in exports when compared to 2010 (North America, Asia, and Australia-Pacific). Only 2 regions showed slight decreases: European Union (-2%) and Africa (-3%). Click here to see the entire final 2011 report.

In a recent survey, Thumbtack.com along with the Kaufmann Foundation obtained information from 6022 small businesses across the United States to see how "friendly" certain states were to small businesses. The survey addresses 15 separate characteristics that relate to friendliness. Each state was given a grade of A+-F on the follwoing characteristics: overall small business friendliness, ease of starting a small business, cost of hiring new employee, overall regulatory friendliness, friendliness of health and safety regulations, friendliness of employment, labor, & hiring regulations, friendliness of tax code, friendliness of licensing regulations, friendliness of enviromental regulatinos, friendliness of zoning regulations, publicity of training programs, and publicity of networking programs. They also assessed and ranked three categories pertaining to economic health, but did not assign a grade: current economic health, optimism about future, and growth rate in the previous year. Results were broken down by both state and major cities. Click here for state results and click here for Minneapolis results. You can see there methodology along with a sample of the survey here.

Pine Technical College receive funding from the EDA and the State of Minnesota for an 8,000 square foot business incubator on campus. They submitted a technical assistance request to the EDA Center to help develop policies, procedures, operating guidelines, and other foundational systems for this business incubator. Christo Robberts' report outlines suggestions gine to Pine Technical College. Click here for the final report.

The EDA Center newsletter for May 2012 is now available. Click here for the pdf or here to go to the newsletter archive.

Minnesota House of Representatives are sill working on passing the Omnibus Tax Bill (H.F. 2337). Part of this bill being debated is alterations to the Angel Tax Credit. In an effort to increase investment in Greater Minnesota businesses, legislators have included provisions that set a goal of 30% of the credits be issued to companies investing in Greater Minnesota by the middle of 2013. If this goal is not met, then the credit increases from 25% to 40% on any investments made in Greater Minnesota. They did not meet their goal of passing this bill by April 30. They are still working on getting this legislation through both the House and Senate as soon as possible. Please click here to see the latest House Bill Summary.

On April 2th at the Sanford Center in Bemidji,the Northwest Minnesota Foundation announced the winners of the 4th Annual IDEA Competition. Five winners were awarded $10,000 each for the advancement of their innovations. The 5 winners were: Jeff Sullivan of Bemidji, Mark Landes and Jennifer DeBarr of Bemidji, William and Julia Stephani of Puposky, Brady and Jodi Dyrdahl of Shelvin, and Jay Fisher and James Marvin of Warroad. In addition to the cash award, each of the winners will receive business advice from a "coach" for a year. For more details, go to www.ideacompetition.org or check out the article from the Bemidji Pioneer.

On April 19, DEED released the updated employment figures for March. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 5.8%. This is the second month in a row unemployment has increased. Employers also cut 200 jobs statewide in March. For more details, please go here to DEED's press release.

Click here to view the MIRC Partners progress as of March 2012. PCs for People and DEED have already reached their goals developed at the beginning of the project. U of M Extension reached their technical assistance and training goals. Rural Minnesota new broadband subscriptions have surpassed the goal of 38,000 new subscriptions this quarter. The goals for Minnesota Learning Commons activities, and MNREM training hours progress are within reach. Check back every month to see how much closer the MIRC partners are to reaching their goals.

The Minnesota Management and Budget Office released the April Economic Update which shows revenues are continuing to exceed the forecast. The state's general fund revenues was $2.496 billion in February and March. This was an additional $106 million over the forecast in February. Global Insight's expectation of economic growth is still similar to the February Forecast with real GDP expected to grow 2.2% in 2012 and 2.4% in 2013. Other good news is that Minnesota employment has improved faster than the U.S. average. Click here to see the full April update.

In a press release on March 30, 2012 DEED announced $2.4 million in grants for 11 separate projects that will offset costs of redeveloping blighted property. Cities receiving the grants include Barnesville, Clara City, Duluth, Hendricks, Hinckley, Minneapolis, Northfield, Ortonville, and St. Paul. Go to http://www.positivelyminnesota.com/Newsroom/Press_Releases/Most_Current_Releases/March_30_-_DEED_Awards_Funding_to_Redevelop_Blighted_Sites.aspx to see the press release and more information on the funded projects.

The Febuary 2012 Budget Forecast released by the Minnesota Management & Budget Office on February 29th shows state finances are continuing to gradually improve. General revenue funds are up $93 million, while spending is $230 million less than expected in the November forecast for FY 2012-2013. This leaves $323 million in gains. Of the $323 million surplus, $5 million goes toward the budget reserve to bring it up to $653 million. The remaining $318 million goes "reducing the school aid shifts enacted in recent legislative sessions". Click here to view the full February 2012 Forecast.

In numbers released by the International Trade Administration on February 28th, exports from the state of Minnesota increased to $20.3 billion. This is more than a 7% jump in exports when compared to 2010 ($18.9 billion). Click here to see Minnesota annual exports since 2005. The data show the international presence Minnesota businesses have with 210 total countries receiving exports in 2011 (with 26 countries receiving at least $100 million in exports). The top 10 countries are: Canada ($5.8 billion), China ($1.9 billion), Japan ($1.3 billion), Mexico ($1.2 billion), Germany ($734 million), South Korea ($702 million), Belgium ($623 million), the United Kingdom ($557 million), Singapore ($547 million), and the Philippines ($524 million). Of the top 10 countries, only Germany and the United Kingdom showed a decrease in exports compared to 2010. The Minnesota Trade Office will be releasing their figures soon.

In a study conducted by the Institute of Labor, Employment, and the Economy at the University of Michigan titled "Incubating Success: Incubation Best Practices That Lead to Successful New Ventures", David Lewis, Elise Harper-Anderson and Lawrence Molnar examine how these busines incubators can best help businesses succeed. They attempted to clearly define what constitutes a business incubator before undertaking the study. Then, they examined how incubators operated and how their clients performed. They received responses from 111 of the 376 business incubators they reserched. Interestingly, two of the responses received were from Minnesota incubators located around the Twin Cities and Duluth. For the entire report, click here.