Committee adopts amendment to House Bill 291 to let trade commission set focused regions

Representative Matthews moved to amend Substitute House Bill 291 with Amendment 0983 and explained the changes to the committee.

Matthews said the amendment removes the bill’s preset five-region structure, strikes three originally listed countries, and allows the commission to propose up to eight regions instead of imposing a fixed country list. He said the change is intended to let the commission concentrate effort where it will produce measurable results and to consolidate the various agency trade offices into a single strategy. Matthews noted there is no appropriation tied to the commission and urged that the commission’s work be evaluated with performance metrics; he cited a recent memorandum of understanding with a soybean council and Taiwan as an example of the type of market outcomes the state expects to pursue.

Representative Brownlee asked whether the eight-region limit was intended to prevent dilution of effort and whether the structure allows future expansion. Matthews replied that the amendment is meant to focus the commission’s capacity and that expansion could be considered later based on performance.

With no recorded objections, the committee adopted the amendment as part of the bill; the committee recorded this action as the fourth hearing for Substitute House Bill 291.