For Immediate Release: March 12, 2003
DBEDT Release News 03-10

HONOLULU--DBEDT is reinforcing a major effort to promote Hawaii Products, especially urging those kamaaina living on the mainland and elsewhere with ties to Hawaii to buy Made-in-Hawaii products and take advantage of the best products on earth via Internet sites.

"This is an important time to promote sales of Hawaii products," said Chief Marketing Officer Steve Bretschneider. "We must rally around our local businesses now to support Hawaii's economy. One of the best things we can do is encourage all our friends and relatives living outside of Hawaii to use the Internet to buy from local merchants."

There are hundreds of sites for Hawaii products, many gathered on the DBEDT website (www.hawaii-products.com) These sites include:

"We want to develop a robust kamaaina network through the Internet," Bretschneider said. "We are asking that residents email these sites to everyone on their mailing lists that may be willing to support Hawaii products. Send a copy to hiprod@hawaii-products.com and we will begin compiling a network of email addresses. Later, we hope to leverage this network to offer a variety of Hawaii products, services and employment opportunities using an email newsletter."

If you have a business that markets made-in-Hawaii products and would like to be included on the DBEDT website, please contact the department at 587-2584 or email to hiprod@hawaii-products.com.

For more information, contact:
Dave Young
Communications
Phone: (808) 587-1212
Email: dyoung@dbedt.hawaii.gov