What products are on the market today or are expected?

Today, the United States is the world's leading manufacturer, producing 75 percent of what it consumes. Venture capital investment in start ups is very high in California, concentrating for example, on software, semiconductors, medical devices, biotechnology, networking equipment, and industrial energy.

Even so, California, the U.S. and Europe are competing for global market position with the rest of the world. For example, China's middle class in 2004 was 52 million strong or twice Canada's population and larger than California's population of 37 million. Projections are that within 10 years, there will be 400 to 500 million middle class Chinese. They, like the equally large Indian middle class will be trend setters, updating their cell phones, buying foreign brand-name (Asian and other) apparel, and computers and high-speed Internet links. In 2003 there were 12.4 million privately owned vehicles, up 25% from 2002. 4.5 million cars will be sold to them annually by 2010. Emerging global companies in China and the rest of Asia, in South America, India, and Eastern Europe and Russia will compete with California to serve these markets. Clearly, the capacity to link to local markets and to produce culturally appealing products will be key. Small and medium sized manufacturers are already making this move with significantly more companies saying that exports are more than 25 percent of their sales.