YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning Valley for four days next week will host a trade mission with representatives of Vietnamese companies and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

It’s a trip officials said could very well grow the local economy by expanding the region’s supply chain and entice companies to do business in the Valley.

“I want to see export opportunities for chamber members to grow. I want to see the possibility of our members having some additional supply chain options that could reduce costs and I would like to see the potential of some Vietnamese companies locating here,” said Guy Coviello, president and chief executive of the Youngstown / Warren Chamber, one of the mission’s partners.

“Mousa and I share the goal of trying to increase the amount of our economy based on exporting,” Coviello said.

Coviello is referring to Mousa Kassis, director of the Ohio Small Business Development Center’s Export Assistance Network at Youngstown State University, another partner.

He said it’s important to foster a relationship for several reasons.

“We have about 15 cents on a dollar that comes from exporting in this region because it is the manufacturing heart of the United States … and the other reason is there is a lot of demand for our manufactured goods — made in the U.S.A. It carries a lot of weight in the eyes of importers overseas, so we have a huge positive reputation as U.S. companies selling their very good products overseas,” Kassis said.

“It’s really up to us as to how we promote that overseas,” he said.

The trade mission is Monday through Thursday. There are expected to be nine Vietnamese companies, led by 11 representatives.

It will start with an opening ceremony Monday morning at the Williamson College of Business at YSU. On Wednesday, there are planned one-on-one business-to-business meetings with local companies and those from Vietnam, also at the Williamson College of Business. The event also will include a visit to the Columbiana County Port Authority, said Kassis.

Other partners include the port authority, Lake to River Economic Development and Rickenbacker International Airport.

Potential from the event is two-fold, Kassis said.

“One … is to strengthen the supply chain. After the disruption that happened through covid, it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when it will disrupt again, and the supply chain could disrupt for many reasons,” including price, weather conditions, tariffs and war, Kassis said.

“The thing is, (when) we look at the supply chain, many times it’s not done by design or it comes from networking and it grows organically. The more relations we open with Vietnamese companies, then it will open more as an alternative to only one hub,” Kassis said. “It will give you more options to build that supply chain in that region.”

Second, said Kassis, the more and better relationship with the Southeast Asian country could result in more export sales overseas.

The U.S. he said, has doubled business with Vietnam since 2018-19 to nearly $130 billion, and Ohio has about $4.7 billion in trade with Vietnam.

The relationship between the Vietnamese chamber and Export Assistance Network began in March 2019, when one of the network’s partners, the Ohio-Pennsylvania Stateline Export Initiative, led a 10-company trade mission to Bangkok, Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, according to a release from YSU.

Since, companies in Ohio and Pennsylvania have benefited from this trade mission through increased two-way trade. A notable success from the 2019 trade mission was that Rickenbacker Airport established connections with their Vietnamese counterparts, which led to trade with Vietnam surpassing trade with China, the release states.

Building on the success, the Export Assistance Network issued a reciprocating invitation to the Vietnamese chamber and its members to visit Ohio.

“We are hoping it will be a reciprocating trip by us sometime next year. We’re going to see if there is any interest, and probably there would be an interest … but they are thinking of having this as an annual going, coming to visit us on an annual basis,” Kassis said.