This review of required reporting only queried FAS staff and 

 folks within USDA and no effort was made to query users outside 

 the Government who are customers for this data to ascertain: one, 

 how much of this material is really useful; two, how much of it is 

 needed, and three, are there areas where the private sector is al- 

 ready providing comparable data which is more current and more 

 useful and, therefore, duplicative Government data collection is not 

 needed. 



Last, strategic planning is very important for the efficient man- 

 agement of Government resources. Under the 1990 Food Act, 

 USDA was required to develop a long-term agricultural trade strat- 

 egy to guide the implementation of Federal export programs de- 

 signed to promote the export of U.S. agricultural commodities. Our 

 review indicates that this strategy, which was delivered 15 months 

 late, in fact does very little to set meaningful priorities for agricul- 

 tural export programs and resources. And we believe that a sub- 

 stantial amount of additional work is needed on this long-term ag- 

 ricultural trade strategy to make it a useful management tool. 



In September 1993, the interagency Trade Promotion Coordinat- 

 ing Committee in response to a mandate established in the Export 

 Enhancement Act of 1992, released a report on its efforts to de- 

 velop a govemmentwide strategic plan for export promotion pro- 

 grams. We are concerned with the apparent lack of substantial 

 USDA program involvement within this govemmentwide strategy, 

 particularly since USDA receives the bulk of the Federal export 

 promotion budget. 



The plan made some substantial progress and made a number of 

 significant proposals for reducing overlap and duplication, and im- 

 proving efficiency in the operation of U.S. Government export pro- 

 motion programs. However, the plan did not yet complete two of 

 the major tasks assigned by the Enhancement Act of 1992, the first 

 is setting govemmentwide priorities for export promotion efforts, 

 and the second is the creation of a govemmentwide budget for ex- 

 port promotion. 



The TPCC, in its report, made a firm commitment to complete 

 the setting of govemmentwide priorities and the govemmentwide 

 export promotion budget within the context of the President's 1995 

 budget proposal. We are concerned that to date, USDA's involve- 

 ment in this effort has not been sufficient. 



USDA is barely mentioned in the TPCC report. Potential areas 

 of overlap, for example, in export financing that were dealt with in 

 nonagricultural programs, were not addressed with regard to 

 USDA programs in the TPCC effort. For example, areas of overlap 

 and duplication in working capital export programs between SBA 

 and Eximbank were dealt with explicitly in the plan. Areas of over- 

 lap in agricultural export finance between Eximbank and USDA 

 were not mentioned at all. And as yet, we haven't seen the kind 

 of detailed attention to agriculture's programs that have been ap- 

 plied to other programs within the Government. 



This completes my summary comments and we will be happy to 

 try to respond to your questions. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Mendelowitz appears at the con- 

 clusion of the hearing.] 



