Congress Builds Opportunities for U.S. Firms.

• Author: Wright, Regina
• Position: NDIA Policy Points

Even well-informed members of the defense industrial base may have missed an advantageous piece of legislation passed by Congress as part of a recent Federal Aviation Administration authorization act.

The Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) provision increases the current budget of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) by $30 billion and modernizes its financial tools for promoting U.S. companies' access to frontier markets in low- and middle-income countries. It also helps build security relationships with key nations.

Congress created the corporation to provide businesses with tools to expand access in emerging markets, produce new revenues and jobs, foster economic development, and advance U.S. national security and foreign policy.

To date, it has invested more than $200 billion in more than 4,000 projects, creating jobs in both the United States and underdeveloped regions. Congress designed it to favor small businesses, and since 2008 more than 75 percent of projects fall under this category. However, the current system is fragmented and outdated; lacks effective, consistent congressional oversight; and administers development through foreign aid donations rather than through market driven investments.

To address these shortfalls, Congress crafted the BUILD Act with bipartisan drafting and support. Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Chris Coons, D-Del, designed the act to strengthen U.S. soft power and transform a sector of foreign aid to incentivize private sector investment leading to free market benefits. A win-win proposition, these investments will protect national security interests in strategic areas and promote both domestic and foreign job growth and development through new co-investment projects with U.S. businesses.

Until this legislative change, agile and innovative U.S. companies interested in expanding to strategically important nations have been unwilling or unable to absorb the associated risk and uncertainty, or overcome political impediments. The act increases funding to offset risks and changes policy to make investment easier, delivering more resources and reducing burdens to industry. Companies interested in expansion, but worried about the risk, should consider posturing now to take advantage of increased government funding.

In execution, the BUILD Act reorganizes the development assistance bureaucracy, creating new institutions and programs to translate a doubled investment budget...