Long Beach Economic Partnership

The world trade center long beach (wtclb) serves the business community by providing information related to international business and global trade. Wtclb sits as a subsidiary of lbep and is funded through the port of long beach, the partner to lbep in this endeavor. Wtclb hosted or participated in several activities which brought information and expert insights about international business to the city of long beach. These included panel discussions regarding trade with foreign nations, hosting select la an event regarding foreign direct investment (fdi) and participation in world trade week (wtw) an annual event hosted in long beach for the first time in 2024, celebrating the impact of global trade. In addition, wtclb drafted a comprehensive study on foreign owned enterprises (foe) and fdi within the city of long beach and supported the site selectors event by highlighting foreign investment in the city.

Lbep led the "launch beach coalition" which is a working group made up of key stakeholders in the service of attracting tech startups to long beach. In addition, the group seeks to create an environment within the city that fosters startup growth and investment. The stakeholders include lbep, sunstone, long beach accelerator, imprint ventures, csulb center for entrepreneurship and innovation and the city of long beach economic development department. The coalition members are provided funding of $25,000 from sunstone. Together the coalition has held regular meetings to determine the following: establishment of a work space environment, curating of speakers and experts in the tech startup space, venture captial attraction, introductions and investment, hosting of panel discussions, meetups and other opportunities to provide startup engagement and interaction. As part of this effort, some of the coalition members worked directly with the city's economic development department to identify funding opportunities to expand on the work of the coalition. The group also held regular meetings and opportunities for the wider public to meet and learn more about the coalition and join the collaboration. Lbep hosted information about the coalition on its website and provided an intake form which generated contacts interested in learning more, which were then provided to the group.