Export Control Groupies

Yes...they DO exist! I have just returned from the Lollapalooza of export control road trips. I attended the three biggies...BIS Update in Washington, IBC Global Trade Controls in London and the SIA Defense Trade Conference in Washington. It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks. The amazing thing is that I was NOT alone! There were a couple other export control die hards that joined me for the "trade geek troika". I think at this point that I have just about had it with conferences. Time to get back to work. What was most impressive to me was the high level of attendance and attention at each event...

• BIS Update was packed to the very end (may have had something to do with the giveaways at the end...next year I think OEE should give away a 100% penalty rebate on the VD of your choice...national security controlled items excluded of course).
• IBC's Global Trade Controls Conference was staid by comparison. This excellent 3-day event is attended by anywhere from 50 to 100 mostly senior-level trade compliance executives and government officials from around the world. While this annual event is privately sponsored, it gets high level attention from the governments. Assistant Secretary of State Hillen and Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lichtenbaum were in attendance as well as other officials. The exclusiveness of this event (helped by the rather high admission price!) fostered a vibrant discourse among the attendees. (My schedule permitting I will post a summary of the key messages from this event in a future entry on this blog.) Even the London weather cooperated!
• SIA's annual defense trade conference in Washington was the biggest one EVER. There were well over 600 attendees at this year's event with one company accounting for over 50 of the attendees. With the focus on compliance and enforcement issues it felt a bit like the presenters were preaching to the choir, but there was a tremendous amount of valuable information on how exporters can manage their compliance issues. It is also clear that there are a lot of export compliance jobs out there as quite a number of companies posted openings on the bulletin board at the conference.

It was an exhausting couple of weeks, but well worth it. More later....