Report: State exports drop

California’s percentage of U.S exports slipped in January, mostly because of a drop of pharmaceutical shipments, according to a study released March 7.

The state accounted 8.6 percent of goods shipped out of the country during the first month of the year, down from 8.9 percent in December and nine percent in January 2023, Los Angeles-based Beacon Economics reported.

To put that number in perspective, California accounted for 10.6 percent of the nation’s exports in January 2019, one year before the pandemic hit.

Now that the pandemic has waned, demand for pharmaceuticals overseas, particularly in Europe, has dropped.

A good part of the nominal fall-off in exports in January can be attributed to an unusually sharp decline in overseas shipments from California’s large pharmaceutical industry,” said Joe O’Connell, Beacon Economics’ international trade advisor, in the statement. “Exports of pharmaceuticals and medicines were down by 63.4 percent from a year earlier, while shipments to the European Union were off by 72 percent.”

California’s export trade in January totaled $13.8 billion, down 7.4 percent year-over-year.  Exports of manufactured goods fell 13.3 percent, to $8.6 billion, during that time, Beacon reported.

Beacon’s analysis was based on data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division.