Where Industry and Security Intersect
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I’d like to thank you, and especially Eileen Albanese and the staff of the Office of Exporter Services, for all the hard work you have put into this Update Conference. In his opening remarks, Under Secretary David McCormick promised the best Update conference ever, and you delivered. You all deserve a big round of applause.
I’d also like to thank Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez for his remarks at lunch yesterday, as well as Peter Lichtenbaum, Darryl Jackson, Wendy Wysong, Mi-Yong Kim, Craig Burkhardt, and all of the many participants who have made these past two days time well spent – and who, I might add, have devoted the last year to making the dual-use export control system work just as well as it can be made to work.
It is because of people like these, and indeed all of the people of the Bureau of Industry and Security, that exports of sensitive dual-use items are possible. I think they all deserve a big thank you, as well.
This year’s Conference was particularly well-timed, since it gave us all the chance to hear from the newest members of BIS’s leadership team, Under Secretary Dave McCormick and Assistant Secretary Darryl Jackson. Eileen, I don’t know how you managed to pull that one off – making the confirmation process coincide so closely with Update!
But a Conference is a two-way street, so I’d also like to thank and congratulate all of you, from business and government, who have made the time to come here, to participate and learn, to network, and to make this event a real exchange of information and ideas.
And let me add my thanks to our guests from the governments of some 19 of our most important trading partners who came to this Conference to gain a deeper insight into our system and, perhaps, learn something they can take back to strengthen their own countries’ controls.
Last year, I left you with a pledge that we in BIS would do everything we could to improve the U.S. dual-use export control system. I think you have to admit that we have lived up to our pledge. Over the past year, we have made the CCL a living document. From the 2004 Wassenaar list review alone, we made 22 changes to the CCL – 9 additions, 5 deletions, and 8 clarifications. Our licensing officers have put forth near-heroic efforts in bringing average times down by over 25 percent over the past two years. I don’t know about you, but when I was in business, we considered a 25 improvement something to celebrate.
We have also been in constant dialogue – on deemed exports, on voluntary self-disclosures, on red-flags and knowledge, and on all of the myriad other aspects of the system that have a direct impact on you.
We know that the dual-use export control system is still a work in progress. Given the world we live in – the world Dave McCormick laid out yesterday – it could be no other way. So in the year ahead we will continue our efforts to approach our ideal of the best possible system, one that ensures that trade and security reinforce each other.
Last year, I also asked America’s exporters to be our partners in making the system work. And you have done just that. It’s fair to say that over the past year we have received more pages of comments, joined in more hours of meetings, and read more inches of newsprint devoted to the dual-use export control system than ever before.
But our successes of the past year only raise the bar higher. We live in a world of peril and promise, and we will only be free to capture the promise if we are responsible in meeting the peril. So I urge you in the year ahead to deepen your engagement in ways that are even more actionable and more constructive. By being the first line of defense, you can become the first line of offense in capturing the market opportunities you see.
But as for now, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and I know that many of you have planes to catch. On the last day of a major conference, “it gets late early,” as Yogi Berra used to say. So, let me close the conference with a final word of thanks and warm best wishes until we meet again, same time, same place, next year. Thank you.