Designing Effective International Business Programmes for Senior Export Executives

In nearly all developing countries, the need to upgrade the marketing management skills of business executives in international trade is increasing rapidly. The capacity of existing training institutions, however, needs to be strengthened in order to meet the future requirements of the business community. To date, most training is provided by business schools, institutes of foreign trade, or other similar training institutes which have limited experience in executive development, particularly in international business. Organizing training for business executives differs greatly from that for business students. Training institutions and trainers involved in providing programmes to experienced target groups must introduce new approaches, methods, tools and structures when organizing such training. Programmes need to be practical and relevant to participants. Trainers of export business executives should regard themselves as training managers accountable for the delivery of effective training programmes enabling participants to apply immediately their newly acquired skills and now-how in their respective organizations.     

The High-Value Commodity Export Effects of Standards in Africa

ABSTRACT

The stringency in standards usage, especially in developed markets, has trade effects, particularly for Africa. Thus, this study investigated the export effects of the EU standards for Africa in a two-step, Helpman et al. (2008) model for two high-value commodities. In all, 52 African countries were considered from 1995 to 2012. This study finds that fish standards are trade enhancing at the extensive margins, but not at the intensive margins. However, vegetable standards are trade inhibiting at both the extensive and intensive margins. Thus, these findings suggest that the impacts of standards on exports are commodity-specific.     

Export Attitudes of Taiwanese Executives

SUMMARY

Taiwanese-based firms have long been actively involved in exporting and international trade. This article investigates their export attitudes and qualities for effective international conduct. Data from 182 companies in Taiwan provide mixed support for three hypotheses advanced in this study. International experience is found to significantly influence exporting attitude. In addition, two measurements of size (annual sales and number of employees) and international business experience are found to have some influence on export attitudes and on the needed qualities for effective international business conduct.     

OECD Export Credit Agencies: Supplementing Short-Term Export Credit Insurance during the 2008 Financial Crisis

ABSTRACT

The 2008 financial crisis impacted international trade in part due to decreases in trade finance and export credit insurance. This article shows that Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states used their public Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) to supplement the lack of private short-term export credit insurance as a means to increase trade. All OECD states, except Greece and Estonia, either increased the capacity of their ECAs to provide short-term export credit insurance, or they developed new products for this purpose. More generally, states that changed their short-term export credit insurance programs had major trading partners with defaults.     

Growth Potential for Maritime Trade and Ports in Europe

Global economic development in recent decades has been characterised by a rapidly progressing intensification in world trade and the international division of labour. As a result of the expansive development of international merchandise trade, cargo shipping has been one of the fastest growing economic sectors. The progressive global integration processes, the future reduction in trade barriers and the expected increase in prosperity in numerous regions of the world will also call for a marked expansion in world trade and cargo shipping. This designates maritime logistics as an economic sector with favourable perspectives for development. What growth rates can be expected for EU maritime trade? And what impact will these have on Europe’s ports? This article is based on the HWWI and Berenberg Bank study “Maritime Trade and Transport Logistics” published in 2007.     

中国农产品贸易现状及对策分析

农产品贸易是我国对外贸易的重要组成部分,加快农产品贸易的发展至关重要。近年来,我国农产品贸易的总体规模不断扩大,不仅在总量上取得了巨大的成就,在出口额和进口额方面也是名列世界前茅,但还存在出口深加工和技术创新不足、附加值低、非关税壁垒严重、出口管理体制不完善等问题。我国应加快建立农产品加工管理体系,加大农产品质量标准体系建设力度,完善农产品出口管理体制,从而更好的适应现代农产品贸易的国际环境,促进其在国际市场的进一步发展。     

Important Dimensions in Ocean Freight Services

Abstract

This paper examines the criteria used by organizational buyers in their choice of suppliers of shipping services for ocean freight transport so widely used in international trade. The study was conducted in Singapore which is known for its heavy reliance on international trade as well as for its high ranking container port facilities. Based on a survey of shipping managers in a cross section of business organizations in Singapore, the study identifies important factors in the choice of a shipping line selected on their heaviest used export route for their outgoing goods. It also provides buyers' evaluation of the preferred carrier on the same attributes to examine the performance gaps in the services offered by the line. The findings thus provide a bench mark for the shipping industry and points toward areas of emphasis in the service strategies of the shipping lines.     

破解国际物流之瓶颈

国际物流主要是为进出口贸易实现国际运输。其业务范围涉及极广,业务流程长,涉及到出口、远洋运输、进口提货等多个环节,货主常常在报关、安全运输、提单提货等环节遇到陷阱而"卡壳",造成被动局面,要成为国际物流的舵手,时时掌握主动把握局面,关键就是要破解以下几个瓶颈。     

How Do Exporters React to Changes in Cost Competitiveness?

Various international institutions such as the European Commission, the ECB and the OECD often use unit labour costs as a measure of international competitiveness. The goal of this paper was to examine how well this measure is related to international export performance at the firm level. To this end, we use Belgian firm‐level data for the period 1999 to 2010 to analyse the impact of unit labour costs on exports. We find an estimated elasticity of the intensive margin of exports with respect to unit labour costs between −0.2 and −0.4. This elasticity varies between sectors and between firms, with more labour‐intensive firms having a higher elasticity. The microdata also enable us to analyse the impact of unit labour costs on the extensive margin. Our results show that higher unit labour costs reduce the probability of starting to export for non‐exporters and increase the probability of exporters stopping. While our results show that unit labour costs have an impact on the intensive margin and extensive margin of firm‐level exports, the effect is rather low, suggesting that pass‐through of costs into prices is limited. The latter is consistent with recent trade models emphasising that not only relative costs, but also demand factors such as quality and taste matter for explaining firm‐level exports.     

论海外直接投资与贸易的关系

从理论上讲,对外直接投资与国际贸易的关系即存在互补性,也具有相互替代性,这要根据母国(或跨国公司)投资的动机、类型和发展阶段而定.本文回顾了发达国家和发展中国家在此方面的实践,并结合我国海外投资与贸易出口的实际,按几个行业分别分析了海外投资与贸易的互补或替代关系.论文认为,由于投资行业的特点和投资区域的不同,海外投资对我国对外贸易的影响要视具体的投资行业和投资区域而定.从目前看,政府应该给予具有贸易创造效应的海外投资在政策上的大力支持.     

新冠肺炎疫情对我国进出口贸易的影响及政策应对

全球性的新冠肺炎疫情对我国进出口贸易将造成一定的负面影响,我国的进出口同比增速将有所下降,外贸企业面临较大压力,国际贸易摩擦也可能有所增加。但是,本次疫情对我国进出口贸易的影响只是暂时的短期波动,我国的国际经济影响力并不会受到全局性影响。在政策应对方面,应保障临时性应急政策的有效供给,加大电子政务和电子商务的政策支持,尽快设计应对贸易摩擦的政策方案,并采取更加积极的财政政策与适度放宽的货币政策,以迅速恢复我国进出口贸易发展的强劲态势。     

WTO的环境规则与我国的外贸发展对策

贸易可持续发展问题已成为当代国际经济贸易领域的中心议题,并且倍受WTO的高度重视。研究并适应WTO有关贸易与环境问题的内容,针对它对我国外贸出口的影响,提高企业的国际竞争力,是保持我国出口贸易可持续发展的关键所在。     

A Latin American Perspective on Trade Policies

This article looks at the trade policy guidelines that the region should follow in order to achieve dynamic international economic linkages, in the light of the international context, the theoretical debates on this subject, and some lessons that may be learned from the study of successful cases. It is posited that in the countries of the region, trade policy can be an instrument for macroeconomic management, fiscal management, and, at the microeconomic level, resource allocation. Its use as a second-best instrument is justified when there are constraints on the use of the best possible solutions. It is also held that there must be close coordination of the policies applied in the fields of trade, industry, and technology to ensure high levels of investment in the tradeable sectors of the economy, a form of competitiveness based on constant increases in productivity, and an improvement in the region's specialization profile. Finally, emphasis is placed on the need to strengthen the institutions of Latin American states in order to ensure that their interventions in the economy have a suitable level of effectiveness.     

Inequality and endogenous trade policy outcomes

An enduring puzzle in international economics is why trade interventions are biased in favor of import-competing rather than export sectors and therefore restrict trade. In this paper, we show that if the government's objective reflects a concern for inequality then trade policy generally exhibits an anti-trade bias. Importantly, under neutral assumptions, the mechanism that we analyze generates the anti-trade bias independently of whether factors are specific or mobile across sectors. The mechanism also generates an anti-trade bias between large countries even after they sign reciprocal trade agreements that eliminate any terms-of-trade motivation for the use of trade protection.     

Sweet and Sour Changes in Trade Regimes

Sugar is an important export for a number of developing countries, especially in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions. In many of these countries, preferential access to the EU market has been a key factor to develop their sugar sectors. The recent and proposed changes to the international sugar trade regimes, particularly in the EU, are threatening this preferential access. We study the possible implications of such changes on ACP countries’ sugar production and exports by using a spatial price equilibrium model specifically developed for the sugar market. The results suggest that the effects of these changes are likely to vary according to the prevailing level of world sugar market price and according to whether ACP countries are current exporters to the EU.     

中国国际文化贸易发展路径研究

在分析目前中国国际文化贸易的发展现状、作用的基础上,认为要加快中国国际文化贸易的发展,应从加强对文化产品翻译的投入,加强同WTO的合作,注重专业人才的培养与发展,加大创新力度,打造文化国际品牌,发挥全球华人的推广力等方面展开。     

Australian Exports of Dairy Products

Abstract

Exports of dairy products are becoming increasingly important in terms of export earnings for Australia. The industry is the fourth highest foreign exchange earner compared to all Australia's food exports. However, Australian exports of dairy products account for about 67 per cent of the total Australian production of dairy products, and about 13 per cent of total world exports of dairy products. About 68 per cent of Australian dairy products exports are sold on Asian markets. The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenging issues and opportunities for Australian exports of dairy products on world markets and to identify potential and emerging export markets for Australian dairy products. Australia is highly restricted on its access to world dairy product markets by the impact of export subsidies and other trade barriers of overseas markets. The current economic and political crises in Asia are also not favourable to maintain export sales on some of the Asian markets. The export support scheme in Australia has made exporting attractive relative to domestic sales. But it is anticipated that the termination of the scheme after June 2000, will reduce production and exports by 6 and 20 per cent, respectively in the short run. However, in the long run, resources will be efficiently used without government intervention and Australian dairy products will also be competitive on the domestic market. There is scope for greater market opportunities in the emerging markets in Asia and other parts of the world for Australian dairy products. Australia will also benefit from the agreement on international trade that directs exporting countries to reduce export subsidy and remove nontariff trade barriers on exports of dairy products. Australia should implement appropriate measures to inaease the milk yield per cow, to improve the quality of dairy products and to identify the need for market promotion and research in order to increase the volume of dairy product exports on world markets, especially in Asia and other potential markets such as Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas.     

绿色贸易壁垒与我国农产品出口贸易

自加入WTO以来,我国农产品出口额增长较快,已经成为世界上第五大农产品出口国。但在此过程中也遇到了各种各样的困难,国际上非关税贸易壁垒特别是绿色贸易壁垒的强化,对我国农产品出口贸易构成巨大的挑战。绿色贸易壁垒对我国农产品出口贸易造成巨大的经济损失,造成我国农产品的出口萎缩,增加了我国农产品的出口成本和市场开拓难度。其原因既有国内的因素,也有国际上的原因。我国农产品出口贸易应对绿色贸易壁垒必须做到从源头上控制产品质量,发展生态农业,走可持续发展农业之路,加强农产品的产品升级和国际合作,走市场多元化道路,建立农产品国际绿色贸易壁垒预警机制以有效化解农产品出口风险。     

Trade Costs in Bilateral Trade Flows: Heterogeneity and Zeroes in Structural Gravity Models

This paper contributes to the explanation of international trade flows with structural gravity models taking heterogeneity and excess zeroes into account. We introduce a more general hypothesis on the structure of trade costs in Helpman et al. (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2008; 123 , 2, 441) theoretical model that is capable of explaining over‐dispersion in trade data. Zero‐inflated negative binomial models are considered to analyse the impact of trade costs, measured in terms of geographical distance and contiguity effects. An analysis related to a sample of 37 countries' trade flows, with heterogeneous effects across sectors and trade‐integrated areas, such as APEC and EU, is presented. The size of exporting and destination economies and cultural and institutional factors are considered as influencing both the extensive and the intensive margin of trade.