Regional Chamber Meets with German Trade Consultant
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber accelerated its international business push last when when a German business consultant visited Cleveland.
The chamber vice president for economic development, Sarah Boyarko, was part of a group of economic development leaders who welcomed Michael Muench, a consultant for international business and economic development. Muench, from Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is the director of JobsOhio’s German Foreign Direct Investment Office.
“Germany has the largest economy in Europe,” Boyarko said in a written statement. “As the German economy expands, there are exporting opportunities that will develop for local companies and there is business attraction potential for the Valley.”
German companies hope to increase their direct investment in the United States and are ramping up to do so, she said.
Eleven German companies do business in Mahoning and Trumbull counties and 35 in the region served by the OH-PA Stateline Export Initiative. That initiative began earlier this year when the chamber and the International Trade Assistance Center at Youngstown State University joined eight other economic development agencies in 10 counties in northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania to create a global trade strategy.
Muench, owner of Muench International Business and Consulting, spent part of Thursday learning about northeastern Ohio’s key economic clusters and discussed how he could help connect those clusters with their counterparts in Germany.
A day earlier, Boyarko and Regional Chamber President and CEO Tom Humphries met with key economy officials from India.
SOURCE: Regional Chamber.
Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
