Monday, January 17, 2011

“What is difference between international business and international trade?

"Business"  is the whole spectrum of dealings in which people and companies engage - it is generally boiled down to the exchange of goods and services for money or other goods or services.

Business is a term used for all the activities performed by a business enterprise. This includes three basic activities of buying, manufacturing and selling. In addition a business may carry out additional activities such as product design, advertising and financing. Based on this basic meaning, the word business may also be used in several related ways such as a firm or enterprise in business activities, the overall state or performance of such firm (for example, "how is business?"), and group of firms or their activities connected with a common product (for example, automobile business).

“Trade” is technically the exchange of good for money or other good.

Trade is referring only buying and selling activities, which form a part of business activities. The word trader is often used to describe business firms, such as wholesalers that are primarily engaged in buying and selling activities. Also the word trading is used more often to describe buying and selling activities involving large quantities between traders rather than selling to retail customer. Usually imports and exports involve buying and selling of large quantities between traders, and therefore it is more common to use term trading for such activities.

For instance a manufacturer of something is engaged in trade, the lawyers and accountants who supply that manufacturer their services are engaged in business - and it doesn't matter if it all happens within one country or if it is international - nowadays a company's accounts might well be handled by someone in a different country.

Now, for this blog and the domain name we picked “International Business Expert” we will focus mostly on business side of trade. One other way saying it is we will deal with trade issues, solutions with better business perspective. We will often discuss about exchange of goods, money and services based on industry, economy and country with business point of view. We will often talk about how to find a fine answer with right tools that will help us grew our businesses and reach our goals by doing it legally- ethically and effectively.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Why Free Trade?

Proponents of free trade argue that voluntary exchange meets the demands of justice because each party to the trade leaves the trade richer than he or she was before. Johan Norberg writes in his book In Defense of Global Capitalism: It may seem odd that the world's prosperity can be augmented by swapping things with each other, but every time you go shopping you realize, subconsciously, how exchange augments wealth. You pay a dollar for a bottle of milk because you would rather have the milk than your dollar. The shop sells it at that price because they would rather have your dollar than keep the milk. Both parties are satisfied with the deal, otherwise it would never have taken place. Both of you emerge from the transaction feeling that you have made a good exchange, your needs have been provided for. 
Advocates of free trade note that parties to a transaction participate freely because it improves their own lot. This lesson applies more generally to trade among nations. If producers and consumers in world markets adopt the same producing and consuming behaviors that they do as individuals, then exchange among nations is just and wealth increasing.

Other academics have focused on the connection between open exchange and the larger program of freedoms in society. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman argues in Capitalism and Freedom that there is a very real connection between economic freedom and the political freedoms. In this way, voluntary exchange is a component of a larger bundle of freedoms in society. Friedman illustrates this view tellingly: No one who buys bread knows whether the wheat from which it is made was grown by a Communist or a Republican, by a constitutionalist or a Fascist... Instead of recognizing that the existence of the market has protected [the oppressed] from the attitudes of their fellow countrymen, [critics of free trade] mistakenly attribute the residual discrimination to the market.

Discrimination can therefore be a self-punishing choice for producers - who select workers on the basis of something other than performance - and for consumers, for whom it is costly to determine the often anonymous sources of goods and services. Voluntariness permits incentive structures that accord with fairness.
 
Advocates of free trade find many economists in their ranks; economists nearly unanimously support measures to increase the flow of goods between nations, and thereby to make trade freer.

Countries, like people, are more or less talented at producing various goods.

When countries specialize in producing what they are relatively more talented at producing, they can trade with other countries doing the same thing, and all participating countries can enjoy a more extensive package of total goods and services than they did before. Economists call this the Ricardian trade model, and empirical evidence appears to confirm trade's enriching effect on participating countries.