Staff Report
Published Nov. 28, 2011

Fred Monk has been named chairman of the S.C. International Trade Coalition. He is the president of ECI Find New Markets, a nonprofit partnership that helps companies grow in international and domestic markets.

Fred Monk (Photo/Provided)

The coalition is comprised of the state’s major trade entities, which include: the U.S. Export Assistance Center/U.S. Commercial Service, the S.C. Department of Commerce, the Export Consortium, the S.C. Department of Agriculture, the S.C. World Trade Center, South Carolina State Ports Authority, the District Export Council, the College of Charleston, the University of South Carolina Moore School of Business, the Charleston Women in International Trade, and the S.C. Forestry Commission.

Monk is chairman emeritus and managing director of the Columbia World Affairs Council, which he helped create, and it has helped the Midlands develop international awareness and international relationships.

He also was involved in forging South Carolina’s sister-state relationships with Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany; Queensland, Australia; and Columbia’s sister cities in Kaiserslautern, Germany; Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Plovdiv, Bulgaria; Chelyabinsk, Russia; Yibin, China; and Accra, Ghana.

Monk is South Carolina’s representative to the federal Appalachian Regional Commission’s Export Trade Advisory Council, serves on the South Carolina Commission on International Cooperation and Agreements, and chairs the South Carolina Coalition for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He also is president of the Midlands International Trade Association.

He is the former business editor of The State newspaper (from 1981-1997) and worked at The State and The State-Record Co. for 28 years before joining the Export Consortium in November 1997.