Dear Subscriber

Here's your Wade Trade News import-export bulletin for April 2010. As ever we've got more import-export news you can use, and interesting trading leads that could help you in your business. This month you will find news on trading with China, Brazil and Latvia, details of a trade portal that can offer you literally millions of trade contacts .... and some interesting news if you've got one of those fancy iPhones!

There are signs that world trade could be growing again, meaning some good news at last for international traders, following an announcement that China's exports grew for the third month in a row in February. They rose 45.7% year on year to US$94.52 billion, according to the General Administration of Customs. Imports in the same month rose 44.7% to US$86.91 billion.

However, Wang Tao, an economist with UBS Securities, said: "February's growth surge partly resulted from a lower comparison base last year" - as China's exports in February 2009 marked the sharpest decline in more than a decade because of the financial crisis. The European Union and USA top the table as China's two largest trade partners. Trade with the EU grew 34.5% to US$65.53 billion and with the USA 25.1% to US$49.32 billion. Trade with ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) grew most of all. It rose 66% to reach US$39 in the first two months of the year.

Brazil is becoming more and more one of those countries you really do need to look at trading links with, with yet more good news about the economy there. The rating service Fitch Ratings announced recently that the gross domestic product of Brazil is likely to reach 5.5% in 2010. (Right now, most other economies would be happy with 0.5% growth!)

Fitch said that Brazil is in a very good position to recover from the global financial crisis. It added that although there could be some economic uncertainty as a result of the presidential elections this year major changes in economic policies are not expected as a result of it.

When you're considering buying from or selling to a new country wouldn't it be good to have inside information from someone who knows that country inside out? That's what you get with the Lex Mundi Guides to Doing Business. Lex Mundi is a network of law firms across the world. The Lex Mundi Guides to Doing Business are a collection of overviews written by Lex Mundi member firms that provide detailed information about each firm's country, state, or province. On their site you can access and download more than 130 guides to doing business for different countries, states or provinces - all absolutely FREE. Website: http://www.lexmundi.com/lexmundi/Guides_to_Doing_Business1.asp

The Baltic country of Latvia is located at the crossroads of northern and eastern Europe, on the east coast of the Baltic Sea. The Republic of Latvia is bounded by Estonia to the north, Russia and Belarus to the east and Lithuania to the south, and has a sea border with Sweden to the west. Other neighbouring countries include Finland, Poland and Germany. This great strategic position is one of the factors in current-day Latvia's economic rebirth since it gained independence from the USSR. The objective of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) is to promote business development by encouraging more foreign trade and investment. There is useful information about trading with Latvia and an online import-export directory (EXIM). Website: http://www.liaa.gov.lv/eng/home/news/

* iPhone Apps For International Traders
If you've got an iPhone you'll know you can get applications to make so many tasks a lot easier. Now the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) has launched some of the first iPhone apps for business-to-business (B2B) sourcing and accessing trade fair information. HKTDC Mobile enables buyers to source suppliers instantly. By downloading the app, iPhone users can access the HKTDC B2B sourcing platform, HKTDC services and the HKTDC global branch office network. Through HKTDC Mobile buyers can find the relevant suppliers from the HKTDC's community of 120,000 quality suppliers, choose from clear product photos and send enquiries directly through their iPhone in one go.  HKTDC Fairs allows buyers to pre-register and get free admission badges to HKTDC fairs too. Buyers can access detailed trade fair information, search the exhibitor list and look for practical tips on getting around Hong Kong. iPhone users can download the HKTDC Mobile and HKTDC Fairs applications directly through the App Store on iPhone. For more information take a look here: http://www.hktdc.com/mobile.
I'll bring you details of more apps you might find handy as I discover them.

International trading portals are nothing new. But here's one which has a very new way of doing things, to bring you even more useful trade leads. Tootoo.com describes itself as a third generation online business-to-business platform, combining an international trade portal with vertical search engine technology to help find you leads. Its search technology doesn't rely on a database of registered sources, but instead gets the results you want from all B2B networks and trade portals on the world wide web. Whether searching by product, industry, or company name, Tootoo.com's results let you compare potential trading partners easily and efficiently. Tootoo.com has no bias towards particular buyers or suppliers so that all the results returned are ordered by relevance and quality. You can apparently access more than 100,000,000 business websites, 8,000,000 companies' details and more than 15,000,000 products. Here's the site: http://www.tootoo.com

That's all for this month. Look out for May's bulletin when I'll have some more leads that can make you money. Meanwhile, if you need more help or information on the products Wade World Trade has for you, including our seminars and courses, our website is open 24/7 - find us at http://www.wadetrade.com. You can also view a presentation by Wade's MD Justin Power, explaining how you can get started in import-export without a penny in capital.

 

Until next month,

Mark Hempshell
Editor