NEW YORK – Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo and Export-Import Bank President James A. Harmon today signed an agreement to work together to create jobs and stimulate business growth in economically distressed neighborhoods across America.

The agreement will enable HUD, the Export-Import Bank, and private sector investors to intensify efforts to close the gap between the prosperous majority of American communities and the places left behind despite the booming national economy.

"Job creation and business growth set off a chain reaction that can transform blighted neighborhoods into centers of growth and opportunity," Cuomo said. "When all levels of government and the private sector work together to create jobs and revitalize communities, we help build a stronger national economy and better lives for America’s families."

Cuomo made the announcements at a HUD national economic conference titled Closing the Economic Gap: Investing in American Communities. The conference was held in New York City and was attended by people working in government, business, and non-profit groups.

Others speaking at the conference included: Ex-Im Bank President James A. Harmon; Alice Rivlin, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Congressman Charles B. Rangel of New York City; Jonathan Tisch, President and CEO of Loews Hotels; and Hugh Price, President and CEO of the Urban League.

President Clinton has requested funding for $7.3 billion in HUD economic development grants and loan guarantees in his proposed Fiscal Year 2001 budget. HUD runs a broad range of programs to help attract and expand businesses located in low-income neighborhoods, and also provides job training and placement to help people move from welfare to work.

The Export-Import Bank aids in financing and facilitating U.S. exports and encourages the participation of minority and women-owned businesses in international commerce.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding signed between HUD and the Ex-Im Bank, the two organizations will:

• Coordinate their marketing efforts to makes businesses aware they can receive assistance from programs operated by both agencies.
  
  
• Coordinate lending and loan guarantee activities to increase the benefit to businesses.
  
  
• Launch joint efforts to help small minority and women-owned businesses in low-income neighborhoods compete in the global economy. Business owners who may have never thought of entering the export market will learn how to expand their markets by seeking customers abroad.
  
  
• Share business growth strategies with each other and with businesses and communities. This will enable a business in one city to learn from the successes and the failures of businesses in cities around the country.

HUD’s economic development programs provide the financial tools that help state and local governments carry out their goals to create needed jobs in economically depressed areas of inner cities and chronically underdeveloped rural communities. What needs to happen now, Cuomo told the conference, is for those communities to develop strategies for attracting and leveraging private sector investment in their revitalization efforts.

Cuomo urged communities to bring these public-private partnerships to fruition by fully utilizing the $5.1 billion in grants and $2.2 billion in federal loan guarantees that President Clinton has requested for HUD economic development in Fiscal 2001.

Cuomo said the money would include:

• $1 billion in loan guarantees to finance private companies, approved and licensed by HUD under the America’s Private Investment Companies Act (APIC). APIC would raise at least $25 million in private equity to invest in job-generating businesses or commercial real estate developments in low-income communities. APIC is one of the President’s Fiscal 2001 New Market Initiatives designed to significantly increase private investment in the development or expansion of inner city and rural business and neighborhood commercial development
  
  
• $4.9 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds for HUD to help communities address their development needs and create economic opportunity and jobs.
  
  
• $1.2 billion in loan guarantees to help local governments leverage their CDBG grants under the Section 108 loan guarantee program for financing large-scale economic development projects.
  
  
• $100 million in Economic Development Initiative grants to help communities leverage about $700 million in Section 108 loan guarantee financing.
  
  
• $50 million in Brownfield Economic Development Initiative grants that would be used to leverage communities’ Section 108 loan guarantee financing for the redevelopment of contaminated, underutilized former industrial sites in inner cities and rural areas.
  
  
• $27 million in Rural Housing and Economic Development grants to assist local rural non-profits, community development corporations, Native American tribes, and state economic or community development organizations develop new approaches to serve the nation’s rural populations.