Trade promotion of California ports: California Export Finance Office.

(1) Existing law requires the Director of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, known as GO-Biz, to provide to the Legislature, not later than February 1, 2014, a strategy for international trade and investment that, at a minimum, includes specified information, goals, objectives, and actions related to the promotion of trade. The bill would require the director to convene, no later than February 1, 2015, a statewide business partnership for the promotion of trade for California ports and to explore greater utilization of California ports, that would be required to advise the director for those purposes, as prescribed. (2) The Bergeson-Peace Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank Act authorizes the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, within GO-Biz, to make loans and provide other assistance to public and private entities for various types of economic development projects, among other things. The bank is governed by a board of directors and under the direction of an executive director. The bank administers the California Small Business Finance Center that administers programs to assist businesses seeking new capital resources. The Small Business Financial Assistance Act of 2013 continues in existence the California Small Business Expansion Fund (expansion fund) , a continuously appropriated fund which includes General Fund moneys, and authorizes all or a portion of the funds in the expansion fund to be paid out to a financial institution or financial company that will establish a trust fund and act as a trustee of the funds, as specified. The Small Business Financial Assistance Act of 2013 authorizes the program manager, as defined, to create one or more accounts in the expansion fund and the trust fund for corporations participating in one or more specified programs. The Small Business Financial Assistance Act of 2013 authorizes the bank board to continue programs funded by the expansion fund or to establish one or more programs administered by the bank or under contract with small business financial development corporations. Existing law further authorizes those programs to include specific types of financial products, including loan guarantees and surety bond guarantees. The expansion fund may be used to pay defaulted loan guarantee or surety bond losses, or other financial product defaults or losses, to fund direct loans and other debt instruments, to pay administrative costs of corporations, to pay state support and administrative costs, and to pay costs to protect a real property interest in a financial product default. This bill would authorize the bank to include insurance, coinsurance, and other forms of surety among the types of financial products included in programs administered by the bank, as prescribed. The bill would authorize the bank to act as agent for creditworthy California growers, manufacturers, and other exporters, to sell approved and insured accounts receivable to qualified parties, and function as a clearinghouse for the collection and disbursement of funds relative to those sales. By expanding the activities of the bank that are funded by continuous appropriation from the expansion fund, this bill would make an appropriation. The bill would establish the California Export Finance Office (office) within the California Small Business Finance Center, within the bank, to be headed by the executive director, for the purpose of expanding employment and income opportunities for Californians through increased exports of California goods, services, and agricultural commodities. The bill would authorize the office to coordinate state export activities with international, federal, and other state entities and disseminate information to California exporters. The bill would also establish within the office an 11-member California Export Finance Advisory Board (export advisory board) , composed of specified state officers and individuals appointed by the Governor and the Legislature, to serve 2-year terms at the pleasure of their appointing authority, as specified. The bill would require the export advisory board, among other duties, to advise on specified export-related programs and issue an annual report. The bill would require the office to comply with existing laws relating to open and public meetings and access to public records.