importinternational trade

Assorted References

• free trade ( in free trade )

  a policy by which a government does not discriminate against imports or interfere with exports by applying tariffs (to imports) or subsidies (to exports). A free-trade policy does not necessarily imply, however, that a country abandons all control and taxation of imports and exports.

• futures trading ( in futures )

  ...voyage and partly to get a better price for their product. From early times, U.S. potato growers in Maine made forward sales of potatoes at planting time. The European futures markets arose out of import trade. Cotton importers in Liverpool, for example, entered forward contracts with U.S. exporters from about 1840. With the introduction of the fast transatlantic Cunard mail services, it...

• international trade ( in commodity trade: The terms of trade )

  ...prices of that country’s exports have fallen, it may, as a consequence of this fall in price, be able to sell a far larger quantity. Total revenue from exports may thus increase. Similarly, although imports may become more expensive, the result may be that the country’s demand for imports drops very steeply, so that less is spent on them than when they were cheaper.

  in international payment and exchange: The current account )

  Figures for the merchandise balance often quote exports valued on an FOB (free on board) basis and imports valued on a CIF basis (including cost, insurance, and freight to the point of destination). This swells the import figures relative to the export figures by the amount of the insurance and freight included. The reason for this practice has been that in many countries the trade statistics...

• terms of trade ( in terms of trade )

  relationship between the prices at which a country sells its exports and the prices paid for its imports. If the prices of a country’s exports rise relative to the prices of its imports, one says that its terms of trade have moved in a favourable direction, because, in effect, it now receives more imports for each unit of goods exported. The terms of trade, which depend on the world supply of...

• visible trade ( in visible trade )

  in economics, exchange of physically tangible goods between countries, involving the export, import, and re-export of goods at various stages of production. It is distinguished from invisible trade, which involves the export and import of physically intangible items such as services.