Sidebar: Power Curbers
Power Curbers Inc. is a small N.C.-based manufacturer that sells construction-related machinery in more than 70 countries worldwide, including Australia, China and North and Central America.
Its top markets are in Western Europe. Power Curbers’ distinctive work on the Eurotunnel under the English Channel highlights its extraordinary productivity. It completed 31 miles of rail bed and 62 miles of sidewalk from Calais, France, in a record nine months. The same work was done manually from Dover, England, without Power Curbers equipment and took 17 months. With this kind of productivity, it’s no surprise that Power Curbers attracts customers abroad.
“More than one-fifth of our production was exported in 2005 and our exports have doubled in the last three years,” said Dyke Messinger, the company’s president.
A more favorable dollar-euro exchange rate has increased Power Curbers’ exports to the European Union. But there remains a huge imbalance in tariff rates between industrialized and developing countries. U.S. and other industrial countries bound tariff rates on imports of manufactured goods are now down to an average of about 3 percent, but the average bound industrial duties in the developing countries is more than 17 percent — nearly six times as high.
Messinger says, “My equipment faces duties of 15 percent in India and 8 percent in China. We could sell much more if these barriers were eliminated or reduced substantially.”