Global-MBITA started as a volunteer business league in 1984 and became a fully operational non-profit association in 1995 when it received a five-year grant from the EDA of the U.S. Department of Commerce to become a partner in the unprecedented, public-private sector export promotion program called BayTrade. Starting in Northern California and guided by the Clinton Administration’s National Export Strategy, BayTrade became America’s first job-creation, export promotion program targeted to small and mid-sized enterprises.   

The BayTrade partnership expanded into Southern California for a similar program called  LATrade that was comprised of four additional export promotion service organizations.  Between 1995 to 2000, BayTrade and LATrade in partnership with the Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, helped generate a combined total of over $700 million in documented new-to-market exports from companies throughout California.  TradePort.org was launched in 1995 to support the BayTrade and LATrade programs and is now one of the longest standing global trade promotion service websites on the web.