By Kevin Shatley, Vice President, Economic Development
Average reading time: 2 minutes
In May, I attended the SelectUSA Investment Summit, a four-day event put on by the U.S. Department of Commerce to connect foreign companies with the federal government and state and local organizations, like the Dallas Regional Chamber and the State of Texas, to talk about locating and expanding into wherever they want to go.
With more than 5,000 attendees and representation from over 100 countries and 54 states and territories, Texas and the Dallas Region interacted with companies from across the globe.
Here are my biggest takeaways from the summit.
Texas’ business-friendly attitude continues to shine.
At the Texas booth, there were more than 80 economic developers from Texas touting the attributes of the state. Led by the Office of the Governor, the Texas Economic Development Corporation, and Team Texas, the Lone Star State was well-represented.
In fact, Texas had the most communities represented of any state there. Many of our allies and partners were there, representing the cities of DeSoto, Plano, Houston, Austin, El Paso, San Antonio, Lubbock, Amarillo, and more. With upwards of 1,100 economic development organizations represented from around the U.S., it was an impressive feat.
Our region attracts attention from all types of industries.
We received interest from companies representing many industries, from software and AI development, manufacturing, medical, and life science—everything.
A lot of companies are interested in doing operations in the U.S. because they want to have a “Made in America” label on their business and product. However, even though companies want to come to the U.S., Texas stands out because of our business-friendly environment, and the Dallas Region is unique because of our growth within the state.
The DRC made promising global connections.
Over the course of the summit, the DRC connected with companies from more than eight countries representing varied industries, including technology companies from South Korea, manufacturing companies from Peru and Pakistan, and more.
We also interfaced with over 30 countries from around the world, including Switzerland, India, Finland, Australia, and the U.K. Follow-up conversations are already underway with several of the companies we met at the summit, and many are now earnestly evaluating Dallas-Fort Worth for their businesses.
Events like these allow us to share the impressive DFW economic landscape with prospective companies from around the world. Our region is set apart on the world’s stage, and we will only continue to grow.
To learn more about the DRC’s Economic Development work, visit our website and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.