More on the recurring theme, a Chicago Tribune story, “A rebalancing act,” with the subhed, “U.S. firms sharpen focus on overseas consumers.”

WASHINGTON - — With American consumers cutting back in response to the recession, many U.S. companies increasingly are looking outward, toward fast-developing countries like China, India and Brazil.

But instead of seeing those countries primarily as cheap producers of goods, both American manufacturing firms and giant multinational corporations see them as potential customers for U.S. products and services. And it reflects what may be the beginning of a shift in the global economy, a rebalancing in which the world relies less on U.S. consumers and more on consumer spending in places such as China.

General Electric’s Jeff Immelt is a leading advocate of making exports a larger part of the U.S. manufacturing economy, serving growing markets overseas. But it’s not just giants like GE that have a stake in the game.

Without their overseas customers, companies like Power Curbers Inc., a small construction-equipment maker in Salisbury, N.C., probably would have gone bankrupt in the recession.

“We’re fortunate that infrastructure development is going on in other countries,” said Dyke Messinger, Power Curbers’ president. He said 75 percent of his sales this year are international, compared with 25 percent two years ago.

Dyke is a director and member of the NAM’s Executive Committee.

With President Obama in Michigan today, it’s a good time to catch up on an editorial we overlooked when it first came out. Drawing on a recent and highly recommended speech by GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, The Holland Sentinel argues, “To renew economy, renew manufacturing“. We’ll excerpt liberally, but read the whole thing.

By now, we assume, most Americans have been disabused of the notion that our economy can prosper by letting people in other countries make all the things we want to buy. For those who didn’t recognize it before, the economic meltdown should have driven home the reality that the hot shots in the financial sector who merely shuffle money around and wager billions on ephemeral investments don’t add any real wealth to our economy; instead they have put millions of Americans at risk. The service sector is critical to our economy, but ultimately America has to make things — things that people in other countries want to buy — to maintain international economic leadership. Ceding sector after sector in manufacturing to foreign producers and concentrating on services has not brought us prosperity.

And the conclusion…

Immelt called for an increase in investment and research and for new public-private partnerships to promote industry, but to us the key to reviving this valuable part of America’s economy may be in fostering a change in the national mindset. As a nation, Americans don’t seem to value the work of making things.

To many bright young people, manufacturing is an old, slow and messy way to get ahead in life. They’re drawn to finance, law and medicine, fields that offer higher social status and a quicker route to financial security than engineering and science. No one makes television series about people working in research labs to find a more efficient way to make a product. The impatience of Americans works against many manufacturers as well. As investors, we demand quick returns from companies rather than long-term growth. In a get-rich-quick world, few people esteem the entrepreneur who slowly and patiently builds a company of real value. Often, the easiest way to meet Wall Street’s demands is to lay off workers and ship their jobs overseas.

A prosperous modern economy requires both strong service and strong manufacturing sectors. We cannot forever continue running huge trade deficits and expect our currency to remain strong and our standard of living to remain high. America cannot give up on its manufacturing sector, and has to learn again the importance of making tangible products of real value.

NPR’s “Morning Edition” program last week featured an informative interview with Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, emphasizing GE’s support for trade as an engine of economic recovery and emphasizing the need for government policies that foster U.S. competitiveness.

From “GE Calls For More Exports To Aid Economy“:

Immelt tells host Renee Montagne that the U.S. consumer can’t be the “sole engine of economic growth” in the same way they’ve been over the past two decades. “And for this economy to recover fully, it’s got to be led by business investment, and it’s got to be led by exports,” he says.

Trade deficits and the erosion of the manufacturing base in the U.S. are among the things that have to be fixed, he says. Immelt says the government will also have to focus on improving exports. …[snip]

Immelt says: “In the places where you have relatively high labor costs, they’ve got to be more productive.” The labor in any facility, he says, has to be able to compete on a “global basis.”

Immelt says the government can take steps to help improve productivity. “My sense is that there should be a real definitive desire to make the country more competitive and to try to make sure that we can export more because that’s where the growth is going to be.”

So that’s the big policy picture. Then there’s what the company itself is doing, as described in a GE news release from Friday, “GE To Open Advanced Manufacturing Technology & Software Center in Michigan“:

FAIRFIELD, Conn.–26 June 2009– The General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) today announced that it will open an advanced manufacturing technology and software center in Michigan. The center is expected to grow to more than 1,100 GE employees over the next few years.

The Advanced Manufacturing and Software Technology Center will include a GE research and development facility that will be part of GE’s Global Research network. It will house scientists and engineers who will develop next generation manufacturing technologies for GE’s leading renewable energy, aircraft engine, gas turbine and other high-technology products. Such work will include development of composites, machining, inspection, casting and coating technologies for GE’s Aviation and Energy businesses.

GE is constructing the new, $100 million facility as Visteon Village site in Van Buren Township, Wayne County, about 25 miles from Detroit. News coverage…

• Reuters, “GE sets Michigan research site, calls for renewal“
• Detroit News, “GE to bring high-paying jobs“
• Bloomberg, “GE to Open Michigan Center, Add at Least 1100 Jobs“

Very good news and excellent corporate leadership.