What: Free Webinar: Best Practices for Managing Free Trade Agreement Management Processes

When: Tuesday, April 19 at 2pm EST
Where: Online

Given the advantages of NAFTA and other free trade agreements, exporters and importers seek to widen the advantages of reduced duty impact by participating in trade agreements. After surveying import and export compliance managers from 200 firms, Customs & Trade Solutions Inc. and Management Dynamics have uncovered key trends in managing the complex Free Trade Management process.

A recent survey by Deloitte found potential trade violations to be a deal breaker for the majority of companies surveyed.

India and Japan signed a free trade agreement February 16th, eliminating tariffs on 94% of goods between the two countries within ten years and making the two countries each other’s biggest free-trade partners. The two are now Asia's second and third largest economies after China. The deal comes as Japan looks to expand its markets and improve its competitiveness in relation to South Korea and China, reported the Wall Street Journal. India anticipates the Free Trade Agreement will not only increase its exports but gain the country access to cheaper imports. The FTA is Japan’s twelfth, reported the Journal of Commerce. Currently two-way trade between the two countries totals less than one percent of Japan’s total foreign trade.

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Since December, when President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak announced that they made further progress on the US-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS-FTA), the agreement has been highly debated on its way to Congress. In order for the measure to take effect, both the Congress of the United States and the Congress of South Korea must ratify the agreement.

U.S. authorities have charged an Iranian businessman with conspiracy, illegal export and smuggling. Milad Jafari was secretly charged with these acts in July of 2010, but the 11-count indictment was just unsealed today. The Justice Department accuses Jafari of acting "as a 'lifeline' to his country's missile program by smuggling metals and other vital materials from the United States in violation of a trade embargo."

The following is a message from Export.gov:

The new INCOTERMS® 2010 became effective January 1, 2011. Incoterms--which is an abbreviation for International Commercial terms--are a series of sales terms. They are published by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and are widely used in commercial transactions. In addition to providing a set of rules for the interpretation of commonly used trade terms, INCOTERMS® 2010 accomplish the following:

1. Significantly revises Group D listed in INCOTERMS® 2000;

2. Reduce Incoterms from four groups to two groups, allowing trade experts to choose the most suitable rule related to the mode of transport; and

3. Reduce the absolute number of Incoterms from 13 to 11.

What's the big deal with "global trade content?" Governments and agencies around the world are all publishing the same data, so does it matter where you get it from?

This post highlights the importance of doing the appropriate research and background checks of all the cost and regulatory elements BEFORE you commit buying components or finished goods from new off shore vendors.

Companies engaged in global trade face many challenges. They must manage a large amount of information to establish and remain compliant. The challenge is that global trade content is highly complex and ever-changing. Collecting, cleansing and publishing trade content for all of your trade needs is complicated by the number of countries, government agencies and differences in trade agreements.