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Annual Report: No. 12 France- Flying high with France

June 16th, 2006

Exports of aircraft parts propel Georgia’s trade with France.

Georgia and France are seeing a healthy increase in their bilateral trade, largely as a result of their two-way traffic in aircraft parts.

Georgia shipped $211 million in aircraft parts to France last year, a jump of 64 percent compared with a year earlier, while the European country sent $58 million in aircraft parts to Georgia.

Rank	Top Georgia exports to France	Value	Change
	Total all commodities	$682,592,605.00	14.30%
1	Aircraft parts	$133,273,239.00	85.80%
2	Regional jet parts	$78,001,977.00	35.10%
3	Heterocyclic chemical compounds	$58,682,345.00	-17.70%
4	Chemical wood pulp	$21,355,688.00	1.90%
5	Pumps for dispensing liquids	$21,058,294.00	11.30%
6	Computers	$18,583,356.00	-21.90%
7	Sulfonamides	$18,291,304.00	23.70%
8	Medical instruments for surgeons, dentists, vets	$18,115,223.00	-28.40%
9	Yachts and other boats	$15,888,452.00	-3.30%
10	Insulated wire, cable	$15,781,255.00	22.20%
11	Sand-blasting, other liquid-dispersing equipment	$11,568,237.00	-27.30%
12	Electric equipment for line telephony	$11,030,349.00	-25.00%
13	Articles of stone or other mineral substances	$10,456,237.00	178.10%
14	Recorded music	$9,618,645.00	201.80%
15	Internal combustion engines, including aircraft	$8,670,984.00	226.40%
16	Compasses and similar navigational instruments	$7,643,351.00	690.90%
17	Reaction initiators and accelerators	$7,339,076.00	7.20%
18	Make-up and skin care products	$5,860,063.00	9938.50%
19	Nickle, unwrought	$5,634,169.00	#DIV/0!
20	Paintings, drawings and other artwork	$5,593,322.00	175.40%
21	Raw animal hides, skins	$5,231,125.00	89.00%
22	Miscellaneous medicines	$4,787,107.00	1187.40%
23	Machines for harvesting, cleaning eggs, grading agro produce	$4,520,155.00	-31.40%
24	Kraft paper & paperboard	$4,461,675.00	-1.30%
25	Optical fibers	$3,950,740.00	1146.50%

France is the United States’ ninth most important trade partner and the aviation sector is key to that relationship.

The total commercial exchange between Georgia and France rose more than 14 percent to reach $1.6 billion in 2005.

The Savannah Customs District, which includes Atlanta and Brunswick, exported $133 million in parts for large aircraft and another $78 million in regional jet parts last year. Those results represented increases of 86 percent and 35 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s imports of French aircraft parts included $39 million in regional jet parts, a 2 percent improvement over the year before, and nearly $19 million in parts for larger aircraft, an increase of 19 percent.

Georgia’s imports of French-made jets were also on the rise, jumping more than 20 percent to close the year at $32 million. France is home to aircraft manufacturer Airbus. At the same time, Socata Aircraft, a subsidiary of Airbus’ ownership group, has three U.S. sales offices, including one in Atlanta. And another French aviation company, Daussalt, has a U.S. subsidiary – Dassault Falcon Jet Corp. – based in Atlanta.

Rank	Top Georgia Imports from France	Value	Change
	Total all commodities	$926,009,084.00	14.50%
1	Rum, gin, vodka, other liquors	$61,861,506.00	63.60%
2	Medicine	$46,426,344.00	79.70%
3	Oil, not crude	$41,599,055.00	216.90%
4	Machinery for working rubber & plastic	$40,019,225.00	-2.00%
5	Regional jet parts	$39,374,011.00	2.20%
6	Aircraft	$31,950,147.00	20.60%
7	Tractors	$29,654,665.00	47.00%
8	Repaired/returned exports and imports	$28,615,981.00	40.50%
9	Transmission apparatus for cellular phones	$27,770,246.00	899.80%
10	Printing machinery, including ink jet printers	$24,846,615.00	53.40%
11	Aircraft parts	$18,817,313.00	19.30%
12	X-ray apparatus	$18,657,186.00	11.40%
13	Wine	$18,232,653.00	8.70%
14	Self-propelled heavy construction machinery	$14,841,499.00	38.20%
15	Motor vehicle parts	$14,392,301.00	118.60%
16	Particle board	$13,336,213.00	510.60%
17	Mechanized equipment, parts for massage/psych. testing	$12,027,303.00	2599.80%
18	Dishwashers and other cleaning machinery	$10,154,820.00	69.90%
19	Vegetable saps and extracts	$9,476,894.00	-8.20%
20	Electric storage batteries	$9,292,003.00	4.00%
21	Acrylic polymers in Primary Forms	$9,073,042.00	203.40%
22	Taps, cocks and valves for pipes, tanks	$8,940,576.00	20.80%
23	Misc. parts and accessories for machines & appliances	$8,906,794.00	155.40%
24	Transmission shafts, bearings, gears	$8,662,123.00	-29.80%
25	Machinery parts	$8,658,555.00	-23.00%

Behind aircraft parts, chemicals reigned as the third most important export from Georgia. Heterocyclic chemical compounds used for pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other products totaled almost $59 million, a drop from $71 million the previous year.

Wood pulp, a major Georgia export, rose 2 percent to total just more than $21 million. Georgia is home to Georgia-Pacific and International Paper and is the United States’ top paper-exporting state.

Georgia’s imports increased more than 14 percent in 2005 to $926 million. Notable among them was nearly $62 million-worth of liquors – excluding wine. That was a jump of almost 64 percent from a year earlier. Wine imports exceeded $18 million, up more than $1 million from a year earlier.

French pharmaceuticals also made huge inroads, rising almost 80 percent to $46 million.

Imports of refined oil also soared. They were up 217 percent to $41.6 million as a result of price hikes and increased volumes in the wake of hurricane devastation to refineries in Louisiana and elsewhere along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Georgia also imported $25 million worth of printing machinery, much of it destined for Imaje, a French multinational in Kennesaw. Imaje designs, manufactures and distributes coding and marking equipment for grocery stores, post offices and graphic companies. It uses its Georgia facility as a springboard for sales in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Michel Besson, a trade counselor for the French Trade Office in Atlanta says French exporters are not as familiar with Georgia and the South as much as they are with California and northern U.S. cities. However, Georgia’s low labor costs and tax incentives have piqued interest. French cement companies Lafarge and Vicat are players in Atlanta’s construction sector.