Exporting from the United States

Last week I gave a class for students in MKT 3400. They have been assigned a term project that involves identifying a product or service extension for a U.S. company and investigating its export potential in a particular country. Students will be working on various questions relating to this assignment for the rest of the semester. I suggested two sources that would help identify good export opportunities. The first, the Country Trade Sourcebook (REF HF1416.5 .C68), takes a country-focused approach and identifies the best industry sectors for U.S. exports to that country. Each country profile is several pages long and describes key industries in several paragraphs. A table lists the top 10 U.S. exports to that country. All in all, this book offers a quick way to identify industries/products with growth potential in various countries. Several students liked this approach because they knew they wanted to use their home country as the export destination.

If students start their research with a particular industry/product they want to export and they are trying to identify the best trading partner for that product, a good place to start is with the Industry Sector Analysis Reports that are available in the National Trade Data Bank. The NTDB is part of Stat-USA (Access it from our database page). Industry Sector Analysis Reports are about 10 pages long and in addition to the industry overview the best reports will include:
Table of market trend data over the last several years with projections
Graph of the key importing countries and their market share
Profile of U.S. share of the import market
Ranking of the leading importers - companies and their brands
List of trade magazines, trade associations and the Commercial Advisor at the U.S. embassy

If you want to see a good example of one of these reports, read about the earth moving equipment market in Argentina. Note that not every industry in a country will be covered. Reports are written about markets that have the best potential for U.S. exports. The U.S. Commercial Service updates these reports through International Market Insight (IMI) Reports. The IMI Reports are posted daily. They are briefer than the Industry Sector Analysis Reports and can announce trade fairs or cover general trade issues. Not all IMI Reports are industry surveys.

To find these reports, connect to Stat-USA and from the home page choose "Globus and NTDB." Many "Market and Country Research" reports are listed (in the right hand column); click on the Industry Sector Analysis Reports or the IMI Reports. You can browse through the reports by country or by industry. Choose either list from the dropdown menu that’s marked "Browse Location."