Export market

“ Under these trade arrangements a free or favored admission has been secured in every case for an important list of American products. Especial care has been taken to secure markets for farm products, in order to relieve that great underlying industry of the depression which the lack of an adequate foreign market for our surplus often brings. An opening has also been made for manufactured products that will undoubtedly, if this policy is maintained, greatly augment our export trade. ”

“ This circumstance [Pg 221] is counted upon by the leadership to motivate trusts toward attaining optimum efficiency in export production and toward adjusting output to foreign market requirements. Financial incentives to surpass official foreign trade targets are provided by allocating the producers and foreign trade organizations a portion of the receipts from excess exports and a portion of savings made on imports through import substitution. ”

“ We have inland navigation. Our last exports did not exceed £1,000,000. Our export trade is entirely in the hands of foreigners. We have no manufactures—depend for supplies on other nations—and so far are we from having any carrying trade, that, as I have already said, our exports are in the hands of foreigners. Besides the profit that might be made by our natural materials, much greater gains would accrue from their being first wrought before they were exported. ”

“ Political economists, seeing the folly of these views, and clearly perceiving that the advantage of commerce consists and must consist solely of the imports, have occasionally suffered themselves to employ language evincing inattention to the fact, that exports, though unimportant in themselves, are important by their influence on imports. So real and extensive is this influence, that every new market which is opened for any of our goods, and every increase in the demand for our commodities in foreign countries, enables us to supply ourselves with foreign commodities at a smaller cost. ”

“ The first branch of foreign trade, which is the export and import of goods, depends on the money. if one half of the people are imployed, and the whole product and manufacture consumed; more money, by imploying more people, will make an overplus to export: if then the goods [Pg 24] imported ballance the goods exported, a greater addition to the money will imploy yet more people, or the same people before employed to more advantage; which by making a greater, or more valuable export, will make a ballance due. ”

“ One country exports those commodities which it can produce the cheapest, in exchange for those of other countries that are either not produced at all in the first country, or can be produced only at a greater cost than by import. The immediate force impelling to the export and import of commodities is, in all cases, a difference in their values in the two countries. ”

“ Countries which export food, have the former advantage, but not the latter. But our own colonies, and the countries which supply us with the materials of our manufactures, maintain a hard struggle with us for an equal share of the advantages of their trade; for their exports are also of a kind for which there exists a most extensive demand here, and a demand capable of almost indefinite extension by a fall of price. ”

“ Any cause which alters the exports or imports from one country into another, alters the division of the advantage of interchange between those two countries. Suppose the discovery of a new process, by which some article of export, or some article not previously exported, can be produced so cheap as to occasion a great demand for it in other countries. This of course produces a great influx of money from other countries, and lowers the prices of all articles imported from them, until the increase of importation produced by this cause has restored the equilibrium. ”

“ An unbroken conversion of the whole yield of exports and freight returns and interest on foreign investments into imported raw material to be wholly converted into new products, mainly for export, was something utterly beyond the possibilities. It would mean a rate of expansion of exports never attained and not only not attainable but not desirable. On such a footing, the producing and exporting country would never concretely taste of its profit, which is to be realised, if at all, only in consumption of imported goods and foods. ”

“ The work will afford a comprehensive picture of American productiveness, like similar works issued in Germany, Austria, and Italy, to the acknowledged benefit of the export trade of those countries; and our own export trade, which is capable of much greater development, cannot fail to be greatly benefited by the successful execution of the scheme. ”

“ The government, of course, will have no pecuniary responsibility or interest in the enterprise, and the essays upon the various branches of American production will be general, and not in the interest of any firm or business organization. The enterprise is designed to collect material for the improvement of our export trade, to show what American producers can furnish for the markets of the world, to encourage American competition with foreign markets, and to call the attention of foreign capital to the opportunities of sound and profitable business with this country. ”

“ The trade, therefore, has not imparted to the foreign consumer the whole, but only a portion, of the benefit which the English consumer has derived from the improvement; while England has also benefited in the prices of foreign commodities. Thus, then, any industrial improvement which leads to the opening of a new branch of export trade, benefits a country not only by the cheapness of the article in which the improvement has taken place, but by a general cheapening of all imported products. ”

“ In addition to the significance of exporting services, export of goods continues to be vitally important to our economic performance. More than 20 percent of our domestic goods are exported, and for durable goods the figure jumps to 36 percent. These exports support millions of high-quality U.S. jobs and play a key role in U.S. economic growth. ”

“ The interest of the mercantile class may happen to differ from that of the whole community. For example; it is, generally speaking, the interest of the merchant to import and export every thing; the interest of manufacturers to lessen imports in order to raise the price of domestic fabrics, and to check exports, where they may enhance the price of raw materials. ”

“ It can not escape notice that a duty upon the importation of an article can not otherwise aid the domestic production of it than by giving the latter greater advantages in the home market. It can have no influence upon the advantageous sale of the article produced in foreign markets—no tendency, therefore, to promote its exportation. ”

“ A large export trade with such a country would be a profitable and mutually beneficial business activity for an enterprising commercial and manufacturing nation, with broader business and politico-economic policies than are found in some of the European countries. ”

“ Another major cause in the reduction of the foreign exchange resources was the higher level of activity of business firms, particularly those in the export sector. As in the case of firms producing goods for domestic consumption, these export firms were heavily dependent on imported machinery as well as imported raw materials to bring about an expansion in their production. ”

“ Today, with our total trade expanded from P1.8 billion in 1954 to P1.9 billion, we have channelled 42 per cent of it to Europe, Asia, and Central and South Amer­ica. This geographical broadening of our trade is an en­couraging feign of growing stability and lessened dependence on a single country us the source of our imports and the market for our exports. ”

“ Thus trade becomes both import and export. The first step is for the tradesman or his representative to travel about peddling goods, or for an owner of wares or money to offer capital to an itinerant merchant with the object that the latter may divide the profits with him later on. ”

“ Of these, the value of the imports has grown from 3 to 8-9 milliards marks, and the value of the exports from 3 1/2 to 6 1/2-7 milliards.... The value of the import of raw materials for industrial purposes has grown from 1 1/2 milliards in 1879 to 4 1/2 milliards marks lately, and the value of the export of such raw materials from 850 million to 1 1/2 milliard marks. The import of made goods had in 1879 a value of 600 million marks, and in 1908 a value of 1 1/4 milliard marks, while the value of the export of manufactured goods mounted from 1 to 4 milliards. ”

“ It is evident that the exportation of a plentiful year could not raise the price above that of a medium year; because it is the high price of a medium year, and the great demand at home, which prevents any part of that produce from going abroad. The importation in a scanty year would bring the price upon a level with the general free market, common to all the nations of the world, which would always be the same, or nearly the same, with the medium price at home. ”

“ Despite the high volume of our international trade, we still are far from matching the international sales efforts of our leading competitors. Only ten percent of our firms export, and only seven percent of our gross national produce finds its way into foreign markets-less than half the percentage of our major trading partners. ”

“ The effect on the exchange of an import or export of gold is, of course, just the same as that of the import or export of any other commodity—an import turns the exchange against us and an export turns it in our favour. If we send gold, for example, to Germany we thereby meet a German claim on us or create a claim for ourselves on Germany ”

“ It gets its imports cheaper, the greater the intensity of the demand in foreign countries for its exports. It also gets its imports cheaper, the less the extent and intensity of its own demand for them. The market is cheapest to those whose demand is small. A country which desires few foreign productions, and only a limited quantity of them, while its own commodities are in great request in foreign countries, will obtain its limited imports at extremely small cost, that is, in exchange for the produce of a very small quantity of its labour and capital. ”

“ The manufacturer or the merchant must take the pains to accommodate a direct import trade to the exigencies of the local market. As an example, smaller bales and shorter lengths are requisite in the piece goods. The establishment of sample warehouses at the treaty ports, and in the more important trade-centres of the interior, where bales of shirting, cotton and woollen goods, cases of farming implements, &c., could be opened and sold for cash, would appeal to the natives. ”

“ We must know (1) the character of English exports. The exports of a country show in what lines it is strong enough to compete with foreign producers, and are the means by which it buys commodities produced abroad. We shall then consider (2) the advantages which enabled England to produce these wares so efficiently that other countries were glad to buy of her, and (3) the countries in which these wares found a market. On the other side we want to know (4) the imports, the wares which England wanted but could not herself produce to advantage, and (5) the countries from which the imports came. ”

“ But if free raw material be necessary to secure an export trade and the foreign markets, then I answer that our manufacturers to-day have substantial free trade in foreign raw materials which they make into the finished product in the United States, provided they export it. ”

“ The more other nations lower their trade barriers, the more American firms can export. And the more we export, the more jobs we'll create. The more the economies of other nations expand, the more their people can buy our products, creating even more American jobs. Our exports to other countries account for some 7 million American jobs. ”

“ The chief things that we have for export bear about the following proportions to their respective quantities consumed in the United States—assuming 45 millions as the amount of value exported, and taking our products at their average quantities. ”

“ The countries not possessing a native supply, could obtain it only by what was called a favourable balance of trade, that is to say, by exporting to a value exceeding that of their imports, and receiving the difference in money. ”

“ No country can long import unless it also exports, or can long export unless it also imports. If then any circumstance should occur, which should permanently prevent a country from importing the usual amount of foreign commodities, it will necessarily diminish the manufacture of some of those commodities which were usually exported; and although the total value of the productions of the country will365 probably be but little altered, since the same capital will be employed, yet they will not be equally abundant and cheap ”

“ It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce that the real value of exports should by a small, and only a small, balance exceed that of imports, that balance being a permanent addition to the wealth of the nation. The extent of the prosperous commerce of the nation must be regulated by the amount of its exports, and an important addition to the value of these will draw after it a corresponding increase of importations. It has happened in the vicissitudes of the seasons that the harvests of all Europe have in the late summer and autumn fallen short of their usual average. ”