The advantages of exporting are clear. Increased exports greatly benefit a country’s economy, because they create jobs, stimulate economic growth, bring in tax revenues, and enable domestic industries to compete in international markets. Firms that export can grow faster, because they can utilize idle capacity,reduce dependence on domestic markets, increase product lifecycles, and simply make more money. Previously, the vastU.S. domestic market usually provided American companies ample opportunities to grow and remain profitable. Now, domestic market saturation and increased international competition are taking their toll, leaving U.S. companies with tighter margin-sand little room for growth. This forces many businesses to look to international markets for new opportunities. The U.S.government has recognized the significance of increased exports for the overall health of our economy and has created a sizable-infrastructure of export assistance programs to help U.S. companies to export successfully. One of the highlights of these efforts is the Export Trading Company Act of 1982. The ETC Act was modeled after the large and powerful Japanese-trading intermediaries called Shogo Shosha. These intermediaries helped Japan become one of the top exporting countries in the world, achieving a 58 billion dollar trade surplus with the United States. While using the Japanese trading companies as a model. Small and mid-size exporters do not have the resources to create separate export departments and often needed to cooperate with competitors by pooling resources or creating joint ventures.