EDITORIAL: Chips Oust Cigarettes As State Export Leader

By The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Mar. 29–Move aside, golden leaf. “Gold” chips are the new king of manufactured exports in Virginia.

In yet another sign that tobacco’s longtime grip on the state’s economic fortunes has slipped, computer memory chips replaced cigarettes as the state’s leading manufactured export in 2005. Coal tops chips as the leading export overall.

According to state trade officials, the chip-export market burgeoned from a fledgling $12 million endeavor in 1997 to a robust $646 million business last year.

Meanwhile, cigarettes — once Virginia’s export pacesetter — toppled from a $2.6 billion enterprise in 1997 to sales of $439.5 million in 2005. Cigarettes now rank third in overall state exports .

The state’s pell-mell leap into the burgeoning semiconductor global market crossed paths with a decline in U.S. cigarette sales overseas. As domestic manufacturers relocated production plants to other countries and multinational groups acquired formerly state-run tobacco factories in eastern Europe and southeast Asia, national cigarette exports dropped by more than half over the past dozen or so years.

Exports aren’t the only venue reflecting the declining role of tobacco in the Virginia economy. In 2004, soybeans leapt ahead of leaf as the state’s top cash crop.

While Virginians may retain a nostalgic warm spot for tobacco, based on the product’s central role in state history, modern health concerns make it a less-than-ideal economic ambassador. There’s a moral incoherence between launching anti-smoking campaigns at home and shipping millions of cigarettes overseas.

The stunning support this winter in the Virginia Senate for a widespread smoking ban in public places offered another sign that the public embrace of tobacco manufacturing has waned. While the House of Delegates quickly crushed that legislation, even Senate passage would have been inconceivable a few years back.

From ports to restaurants, it’s increasingly clear that Virginia’s former economic king no longer occupies the throne. Few outside the industry will regret the evolution to a more forward-looking, less harmful line of manufactured products.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

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