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June 13, 2014
Good evening. This week, we bid farewell to Dr. Pat Gallagher
who will soon become the 18th Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. I
speak for so many here at Commerce who have appreciated his friendship, professionalism
and dedication, and I would like to thank him for his 21 years of service to
the Department. With his departure, I am honored to have been nominated and designated
as the Acting Deputy Secretary by President Obama. Therefore, this will be my
last Commerce Week at a Glance. Starting next week, Justin Antonipillai, our
Acting Chief of Staff, will be writing you each Friday. It has been a true
honor to serve as Chief of Staff and work with so many of you over the last few
years. I look forward to continuing to advance the important work of the
Department in my new role. In this week's edition, you can read about how Secretary
Pritzker participated in the 4th Annual New Hampshire Business Day Luncheon;
BEA and Census released more data through their APIs; and NOAA celebrated
Oceans Week. –Bruce
Secretary
Pritzker Highlights Commerce Resources for New Hampshire Businesses-
Secretary Pritzker participated in the 4th Annual New Hampshire Business Day
Luncheon, hosted by U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen. The event, which brought
together nearly 200 community and small business leaders from New Hampshire,
aimed to provide the business community with information about the resources
available to them through federal programs and agencies.
American
Firms are Key to Building Trade Relationship between U.S. and Burma-
Secretary Pritzker celebrated the growing commercial relationship between the
United States and Burma on Friday, as part of her commercial diplomacy mission
to the ASEAN region last week.
Celebrate
our Natural Treasures During National Ocean Month- June is not only the
beginning of summer, it’s also Oceans Month. Our oceans are natural treasures,
a source of food and energy, and a foundation for our way of life. U.S.
fisheries play an enormous role in the nation’s economy.
Data
Driving Development: EDA Releases New Cluster Mapping Tool to Help Spur
Regional Economic Growth- Clusters are geographic concentrations of
interconnected industries and supportive organizations that make regions
uniquely competitive for jobs and private investment – like the automotive
cluster in the South and the biotech cluster in the Northeast. Clusters are not
top-down formulas aimed at being a panacea for all economic development needs.
More
Data in the Census Bureau API to Help You #hackforchange -
Two years ago, the Census Bureau launched its application programming interface
(API), giving developers access to a variety of high value data sets, including
our flagship 2010 Census and American Community Survey five-year statistics,
providing information for every neighborhood in the nation.
Engaging
Indian Country to Help Create Conditions for Economic Opportunity on Trust
Lands
- The Economic Development Administration (EDA) met with tribal
leaders for a focused discussion on the importance of developing modern trust
management systems and creating the conditions for economic growth on tribal
trust lands. The Obama Administration has a long history of being actively
engaged in helping tribal communities expand their economic footprint, and
recent changes in federal laws and regulations have opened the door to
development of tribal trust lands.
The
Internet’s Next Big Idea: Connecting People, Information, and Things -
Cyber-physical systems, also called the Internet of Things, are the next big
advance for our use of the web. They allow complex systems of feedback and
control that can help a robot coordinate with a dog or human in a
search-and-rescue operation or help health care providers evaluate the recovery
of patients after they leave the hospital.
Commerce
in the Community
- AmpleHarvest.org increases access to healthy foods through
innovation, technology and local partnerships. This blog post is an interview
with Gary Oppenheimer, the Executive Director and Founder of AmpleHarvest.org.
Collecting
Reliable, Timely and Local Census Data- The inaugural conference of the American
Community Survey Data Users Group brought together a diverse group of
data-loving number crunchers from local governments, nonprofits, economic
development agencies, researchers and private sector companies from across the
U.S.
Under Secretary Mark Doms wrote about Manufacturing:
A New Commerce Department Report Shows Renewed Expansion.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis wrote Attention
Developers: More Economic Statistics Added to BEA’s API and Advance
GDP by State Statistics: Widespread But Slower Growth in 2013 on their blog
this week.
April
2014 wholesale inventories were $530.6 billion, up 1.1 percent from the
revised March level and up 6.7 percent from April 2013. Sales were $450.2
billion, up 1.3 percent from the revised March level and up 7.8 percent from
April 2013.
May
2014 retail and food services sales were $437.6 billion, an increase of 0.3
percent from April 2014 and 4.3 percent higher than May 2013. Excluding
automobiles, retail and food services sales in May 2014 were $348.8 billion, an
increase of 0.1 percent from the prior month and 2.8 percent higher than one
year earlier. For 2014 overall, total sales were up 3.4 percent from 2013.
Excluding autos, retail sales increased 2.2 percent in 2014.
April
2014 business inventories were $1,728.3 billion, up 0.6 percent from March
and up 5.0 percent from April 2013.
Sales were $1,337.4 billion, up 0.7 percent from the previous month and
up 5.4 percent from one year earlier.
Commerce Data in the News:
The Washington
Times cites American Community Survey statistics in writing that 13 percent
of immigrants don’t speak English, however, 63 percent of immigrants who have
been here for more than three decades do in the article Less
than Half of Immigrants Speak English Well: Census Bureau.
The Wall Street
Journal looks at Census Bureau age and wage statistics to write how the
growing number of baby boomers who are retiring and the slow growth in the
number of working-age adults will affect household income in the article How
Demographic Changes Could Boost Americans’ Wages.
The Fiscal Times
calls upon Census Bureau marriage statistics in reporting that financial
advisers say concerns about debt, benefits, taxes and cash flow are often the
primary reasons that adults age 50-plus decide not to walk down the aisle in
the article Today’s
Older Couples: Money Focused and Unmarried.
The International
Trade Administration’s data on tourism and travel export growth is
highlighted in a recent Travel Post article: Travel Grew
Twice as Fast as All Other U.S. Exports in 2014.
The Cluster
Mapping and Registration project, a new initiative from EDA and Harvard
Business School, allows anyone to visualize economic clusters across the
country. Fedscoop featured the article “cluster mapping website provides interactive look at economies this week.
Data Releases Next Week: Quarterly Financial Report/Retail Trade: 2014 Q1
(Census); New Residential Construction: May (Census);
International Transactions 2014 Q1 (BEA)
On Monday, NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan will
participate in the international Our Ocean Conference 2014, hosted by the State
Department in Washington, D.C. NOAA will
showcase its Science On a
Sphere room-sized globe to present data and images that reflect the
conference themes of ocean acidification, sustainable fishing practices, and
marine pollution.
Also on Monday, Joann Hill, Chief of the MBDA Office of
Business Development, will deliver remarks at the Capital Region Minority
Supplier Development Council, Annual Business Procurement Conference in
Bethesda, MD.
Also on Monday, NIST Associate Director for Laboratory
Programs Willie May will attend the Meetings of the CIPM Consultative Committee
on Metrology in Chemistry and Biology (CCQM) in Paris, France.
On Tuesday, Secretary Pritzker will participate in the
“SelectUSA Summer Forum: Reinvesting in America, Creating Jobs at Home” on
Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The forum will serve as a follow-up to the
SelectUSA Investment Summit this past October, and will highlight foreign
direct investment into the United States. Under Secretary for Economic Affairs
Mark Doms and Assistant Secretary for Economic Development Jay Williams will
also participate.
Also on Tuesday, Secretary Pritzker will give keynote
remarks at the Germany Embassy Skills Training Conference. The conference will
highlight successful U.S. and German approaches to workforce development and
how our two countries can collaborate as we attempt to strengthen the
competitiveness of each other’s economies.
On Wednesday, Secretary Pritzker will discuss the
Administration’s data initiative at the Open Data 500 workshop in Washington,
D.C. This workshop is part of an NYU initiative called "Open Data
500," which is the first-ever comprehensive look at how U.S. firms use
government data to create and grow businesses.
Also on Wednesday, NIST will host the Mobile Forensics
Workshop and Webcast at NIST Headquarters in Gaithersburg, MD. This free
workshop and live webcast will explore the latest technology advancements and
applications in mobile device forensics.
On Thursday, Secretary Pritzker will participate in the
President’s Export Council meeting in Washington, D.C.
Also on Thursday, Census Bureau Director Johnson Thompson
will have a meet-and-greet with several reporters at the Wall Street Journal’s
D.C. bureau.
Also on Thursday, NIST will host the National
Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Summer Open House in Rockville, MD.
This is the first NCCoE quarterly event for the local cybersecurity technology
community. It will focus on how to get involved with the NCCoE, the Executive
Order for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, and state and county
programs for cybersecurity companies.
On Friday, Census Bureau Director John Thompson and
Deputy Director Nancy Potok will participate in the Federal Economic Statistics
Advisory Committee meeting at Census Bureau headquarters in Suitland, MD. The
members advise the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
and the Census Bureau on statistical methodology and other technical matters
related to the collection, tabulation and analysis of federal economic
statistics.
Also on Friday, USPTO will host a Trademark Public Advisory
Committee (TPAC) Quarterly Meeting at the USPTO campus in Alexandria, VA. The
Public Advisory Committees for the USPTO were created by statute in the
American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 to advise the Director of the USPTO
on the management of the patent and the trademark operations.
There was a great turn out at the 39th
NOAA Fish Fry. The event promotes public understanding of aquaculture and
sustainable marine fisheries.
SmartAmerica
Expo – A 30 second glimpse at the future. The video highlights live
technology demonstration by multinational companies, local governments, tech
startups and non-profits of innovative technologies designed for a wide range
of applications.
Speaking
English - The Census Bureau has a graphic that shows the English-speaking ability
of the foreign-born population by world region of birth.
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