Southcentral PA's 2015 MSA Report

Posted by Brittany Fleisher, Intern

Each year following the International Trade Administrations’ release of their “Metropolitan Export Series” data, we summarize the information for our region. The southcentral region of Pennsylvania encompasses seven Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). These seven MSAs grew their exports by $2.3 billion since 2010, reaching a total of $8.8 billion in 2015 that accounted for 22.4% of the total share of Pennsylvania’s exports. Since 2005, export sales for our region have increased by over 159%. 

Metropolitan Statistical Area	2005 Ranking out of 371 U.S. MSA’s	2005 Total Export Sales	2014 Ranking out of 386 U.S. MSA’s	2014 Total Export Sales	2015 Ranking out of 386 U.S. MSA’s	2015 Total Export Sales
Harrisburg-Carlisle	127	$824.1 M	79	$3.053 B	78	$2.926 B
York-Hanover	95	$1.288 B	102	$2.024 B	95	$2.076 B
Reading	151	$605.5 M	114	$1.743 B	108	$1.778 B
Lancaster	150	$605.6 M	165	$974.3 M	165	$901.3 M
Lebanon	316	$85.05 M	205	$579.8 M	194	$606.6 M
Chambersburg Waynesboro*	n/a	n/a	200	$659.2 M	218	$475.3 M
Gettysburg*	n/a	n/a	361	$63.74 M	362	$55.69 M

Pennsylvania’s top 5 export destinations are shown below. Most notably, the United Kingdom experienced the largest percentage increase of PA exports at 25%; surpassing Germany to enter the top five export countries. 

Pennsylvania’s Top 5 Export Destinations
Rank	Country	2014 Exports	2015 Exports	% Change
1	Canada	$12.30 B	$11.60 B	6% Decrease
2	Mexico	$3.73 B	$4.18 B	12% Increase
3	United Kingdom	$1.85 B	$2.33 B	25% Increase
4	China	$2.40 B	$2.06 B	14% Decrease
5	Japan	$1.58 B	$1.67 B	5% Increase

Additional information in the report include Pennsylvania’s state merchandise export totals, other Pennsylvania MSA rankings, top 10 export industries, and the balance of trade. National data includes the top 15 U.S. exporting states-which Pennsylvania ranks 10^th-and the entire United States’ balance of trade to further our comparison.

Checkout the complete report!

All data included in this report is public information from the following databases:

International Trade Administration, MSA Data

International Trade Administration, State and National Export/Import Data

U.S. Commercial Service, PA's Top Export Destinations and Top Export Industries