Reporting Export Success: Different Approaches
The core measure of MDCP performance is exports. Many cooperators struggle with how to gather the information and report it. Below are some examples.

Let ITA Ask
The Independent Film and Televison Alliance (IFTA) just finished its first-ever U.S. pavillion (see a YouTube video highlight) at CTF "Filmart" in Hong Kong. First indications are that over 100 U.S. export deals were struck. How was IFTA able to harvest so many export successes? It didn't. It let ITA do it. The Hong Kong office of ITA's Commercial Service (CS) was at Filmart in force along with Barb Rawdon from ITA's Manufacturing and Services (MAS). CS and MAS staff circulated among the U.S. exhibitors, established or strengthened relationships, and learned more about the industry, its challenges and opportunities. The fact that U.S. government support was more evident in the form of a U.S. pavillion also helped. When ITA's CS and MAS staff asked about export successes, the exhibitors were happy to share them.

Attribute the Effect of Progress on Industry Standards
As part of an MDCP project NEMA - The Association of Electrical and Medical Imaging Equipment Manufacturers, is working in cooperation with Canada and Mexico to identify similarities and differences of their Smart Grid programs and cooperate on developing and promoting standards. Once NEMA sees progress in certain sectors of the U.S. industry that supplies and/or services Smart Grid technology, it applies the following formula to calculate exports attrubutable to MDCP project activity: Total exports of Smart-Grid products to Canada and Mexico x 1%. This 1% represents the minimum level of benefit of standardization to gross national product based on a 1999 study by Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN)(German Institute for Standardization). The export figures are obtained from the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Use a Formula Based on Survey Results
Capital Region USA has overcome the reporting challenge that has plagued several travel/tourism projects. The MDCP success agreements that tour operators sign require them to report the nationality of guests and the number of nights stay. The number of these "room nights" is then multiplied by $93, the average daily spending per visitor per day. So for example, 45,990 room nights by visitors from target markets resulted in $4,277,070 in exports.

Capital Region USA, received a $339,199 MDCP award to increase visits from Western Europe, Mexico, Brazil, and Korea to Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

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