MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- Tennessee’s exports have reached pre-recession levels according to an economist with Middle Tennessee State University.
Dr. Steven Livingston is with the Business and Economics Research Center at MTSU. He says Tennessee exports were up 15 percent in 2011. Livingston says that last year the state exported more than $29 billion worth of products.
“A lot of it is in automotive exports , broadly based: body parts, paneling, engines – all sorts of automotive components. Then it was also a good year for computing equipment and for chemicals.”
Livingston says some of those automotive parts are being shipped to Japan, because that nation’s manufacturing facilities have still not recovered from last year’s earthquake and tsunami.