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International Business

Country Information

  • Background Notes
    In-depth surveys of various countries.Provides access to information produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Information includes a variety of statistical databases and the full texts of many OECD books and periodicals, in the fields of economics, labor, energy, social issues, and international trade and development.
  • CultureGrams
    REF KNIGHT GT 150 .C85 [One Business Table]
  • Country Studies
    Covers 101 countries and regions throughout the world. Presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of these countries.
  • Global Insight: Country Intelligence
    Country Intelligence provides information on 203 countries worldwide with analysis of breaking events and trends. Country Reports present detailed analysis and commentary on each country's business environment with focus on six key areas: political, economic, legal, tax, operational, and security. Special Reports provide deeper analysis of trends on country, regional or global basis.
  • Global Insight: Data Access
    Data Access (also called "DataInsight-WEB") provides comprehensive coverage of historical regional, national, and global economic, financial, and commodity information. Includes historical data on macroeconomic variables such as national income accounts, balance of payments, foreign debt, exchange rates, money supply and employment, among other categories. It also provides access to the basic U.S. Economic Indicators and International Economic Indicators data banks, and data on the IMF series and the OECD series. Note: Requires Internet Explorer.
  • SourceOECD
    Provides access to information produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Information includes a variety of statistical databases and the full texts of many OECD books and periodicals, in the fields of economics, labor, energy, social issues, and international trade and development.
  • U.S. Department of State
    Provides numerous information, including: countries and regions, international topics and issues, history, education and culture, business, and more.
  • World News Connection
    A foreign news service run by the United States Government - good for information about countries and regions.

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Statistics

Databases

  • Lexis-Nexis-Statistical
    Lexis-Nexis Statistical provides access to all statistics issued by the U.S. government back to 1973 through CIS' American Statistics Index and approximately 1,000 of the best statistical publications of private and state government sources from 1980 forward through CIS' Statistical Reference Index. Foreign statistics are available through publications indexed by the International Index to Statistics, a third component to Lexis-Nexis Statistical.
  • SourceOECD

Reference Sources

  • Business Rankings Annual
    REF KNIGHT HG 4050 .B88 [On Business Table]
    Rankings of companies, products, services, and activities compiled from published sources and arranged by subject. Includes an SIC index. Worldwide coverage.
  • Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook
    DOCS REF HF 1016 .D542 [Ready Reference Shelves]
    Seven years of country-specific export and import data in US dollars. Find out who exports and imports from whom. 
  • Directory of American Firms Operating in Foreign Countries
    REF Knight HG4538 .A1 D5 [Business Table]
    Provides information on American firms that have branches, subsidiaries, or affiliates outside of the United States.
  • Directory of Foreign Firms Operating in the United States
    REF KNIGHT HG4057 >A1255
    Presents concise information about foreign-owned companies in the U.S., including a broad range of businesses.
  • International Financial Statistics
    REF KNIGHT HG3881 .I6263 [On Business Table]
    Financial information on almost all IMF member countries, including exchange rates, money and banking accounts, interest rates, production prices, and national accounts. The monthly edition contains 8 years of data, with the most recent 4 years broken into both annual and quarterly data.
  • International Trade Centre: International Trade Statistics
    This Website includes a TradeMap, which is an interactive Web application presenting trade statistics and market access information for international business development; information on National and Sectoral Trade Performances by country, and General Trade Data 2001-2005 by product group and country for both imports and exports.
  • International Trade Statistics Yearbook
    REF KNIGHT HF91 .U473 [Ready Reference Shelves]
    Country-specific and regional export and import data. For each country there is historical data, imports and exports listed by trading partner, and exports / imports by commodity and industrial area.
  • The Trade Information Center
    Links to country and regional market information.
  • World Business Directory
    REF KNIGHT HF 54 .U5 W667 [On Business Index Table)
    Directory of over 140,000 companies involved in international trade. The companies are listed alphabetically by country.

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Finding Books

    Do a keyword search in the library's online catalog, using "doing business in + country name" or "doing business with + country name" to retrieve book(s) on doing business in/with a specific country. These books are guides for doing business in foreign countries. They cover all the basic information about investment incentives, regulations, taxes, the business environment in the country, etc.

Finding Articles

  • Academic Search Premier
    Full text for over 1,250 academic, social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural journals. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 2,880 journals.
  • Business Source Premier
    Full text from nearly 930 journals covering business, management, economics, banking, finance, accounting and much more. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 1,570 journals.
  • Factiva
    Factiva offers full text of 8,000 international business and general publications including the Wall Street Journal from 1984 to the present, financial profiles for companies worldwide and historical stock prices as well as current data and market indexes.
  • JSTOR: Electronic Journal Archive
    A fully searchable electronic database that contains the scanned images of over 100 major research journals in a variety of academic disciplines including business and economics, some of which began publication as early as the 1870s.
  • Lexis Nexis Academic
    Provides comprehensive coverage of current news, business and company information, government and legal information and more.
  • Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition)
    The Wall Street Journal, the financial newspaper of record, is an indispensable source for business professionals, providing business and financial news coverage, personal and company profiles, feature reporting, special reports, and regular columns. The database provides the full-text articles from the Wall Street Journal going back to at least 1986, with some material from earlier years. It includes the entire text of written articles, but no graphs or data, such as stock prices.

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Selected Internet Resources

  • Export-Import Bank of the United States
    Information on regulations for trade with other countries, background, funding and more. All searchable.
  • GlobalEdge: International Business Resource Desk
    A rich collection of international business resources including Market Potential Indicators and International Business Statistics Database.
  • International Monetary Fund Information on international funding.
  • International Trade Administration
    The ITA offers a great deal of information on international trade, even if the page is somewhat difficult to navigate.
  • US. Department of State
    Information on US International policies, hot topics updated daily, business services including reports on many regions, and careers with the State Department.
  • The World Bank Latest news on what programs have been approved. All publications are also online.
  • World Trade Magazine
    "targeted to the senior management of mid-sized American manufacturers actively involved in exporting and importing, as well as the service industries supporting their efforts."

Canada and Other Regions

Canada

  • Industry Canada
    Various resources, information, and services on business in Canada.
  • SEDAR
    The equivalent of the SEC's EDGAR database. SEDAR is a centralized filing and public search service for the required filings for all public companies and mutual funds in Canada.

Central and South America

Western Europe

  • Companies House (UK)
    Companies House is an Executive Agency of the Department of Trade and Industry of UK, which has three main functions: the incorporation, re-registration and striking-off of companies.
  • Europages: The European Business Directory Home Page
    An European yellow pages, available in several languages. Search by product or service to find industries in Europe.

Africa and the Middle East

Asia and the Pacific Rim

  • Asian Development Bank
    Dedicated to promoting the economic and social progress of its developing member countries in the Asian and Pacific region. Includes lists of business opportunities and contract awards
  • AsiaSource
    A comprehensive source for news and resources on Asian culture, business, politics, and history. Also includes daily news and business news headlines, a Business Protocol directory covering several countries, and more.

Coding Systems

Trade statistics are organized using several numerical coding systems. The Harmonized System and the Standard International Trade Classification are the two main systems used for international trade statistics. Other systems are used for statistics of individual countries.

Harmonized System

The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, generally referred to as "Harmonized System", is an international 6-digit commodity classification developed by the World Customs Organization (WCO). Both export and import statistics are classified and published according to the Harmonized System. Individual countries have extended it to 10 digits for imports to serve as the basis for Customs tariffs and international trade statistics and to 8 digits for export purposes. The Unites States uses a 10-digit system for both exports and imports.

Web access: Harmonized System Codes --- From Foreign Trade Online.

Standard International Trade Classification

The Standard International Trade Classification is the standard classification for the reporting of international trade statistics and provides detailed categories for the classification of commodities arranged in a hierarchy of 5-digit levels. It has been developed and administered by the United Nations and all member countries are mandated to report using this code.

Web access:: SITC Rev 3. -- from the United Nations Statistics Division.

Harmonized Tariff Schedules of the United State (for imports)

The United States adopted the latest version of the Harmonized System in 1989, published by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) as the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) of the United States. The HTS provides the applicable tariff rates and statistical categories for all merchandise imported into the United States. This ten-digit identifying number is assigned to each product and used by customs officials to determine the duties, taxes and regulations that apply to the product. The first six digits are harmonized throughout the world. The last four are unique to the United States. The HTS is available via:

Print: Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States SuDoc ITC1.10

Web Access:

Tariff Information Center
Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb -- View 2004 Tariff.

Schedule B (for export)

The U.S. Department of Commerce uses a 10-digit code to report on export statistics. The initial 6 digits are identical to HS, but further digits may be different. The first 6 digits also match the first 6 digits of the HS codes. Sources for looking up the Schedule B codes are:

Print: U.S. Imports of Merchandise SuDoc C3.278/2:

Web access: Schedule B - From Foreign Trade Statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Maintained by: Kaiping Zhang, kzhang@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 01/06/2009