THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610260009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 43 lines
More coal is exported from Hampton Roads than from any other port anywhere. And Hampton Roads is second only to New York on the East Coast for the volume of container and break-bulk cargo - exports and imports - moving across its piers. But it's not enough.
Richmond-Petersburg, not Hampton Roads, is among the top exporting metropolitan areas in the United States. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported the other day that Richmond-Petersburg is the fourth-ranked exporter in the South Atlantic region and 22nd nationwide.
Tobacco has always been a leading Old Dominion export, and the giant Philip Morris manufacturing plant in Richmond produces billions of cigarettes for overseas and domestic markets. These cigarettes contributed mightily to the $5.8 billion in Richmond-Petersburg export sales last year.
Exports create jobs, and Virginia is scrambling to create more of them. Gov. George F. Allen recently returned from a foreign trade mission with more business for Virginia. Forward Hampton Roads is initiating a full court press to bring manufacturing, assembly and other economic-development enterprises to Southeastern Virginia.
Economic development must be the first priority of Virginia's - and Hampton Roads' - commercial and political leadership. Prosperity generates the tax revenue that underwrites primary, secondary and higher education and public libraries; police, fire, sanitation and public-health services; highways and mass-transit systems; social-welfare programs; civic and cultural centers. . .
Hampton Roads - for any number of reasons that this newspaper spotlights - has not kept pace economically with most other metropolitan regions its size, with the result that opportunities for well-compensated jobs are shrinking and incomes are lagging.
The moral is simple: Move ahead as fast as possible or fall further and further behind. No region can be complacent. Richmond-Petersburg exports increased 2.4 percent from 1994 to 1995, but the rise was not enough to prevent the region from slipping from its position as the 18th leading exporting center in the country to 22nd. As the late, great Satchel Paige admonished: ``Don't look back; something may be gaining on you.'' by CNB