Colombia’s Congress voted to table a free trade agreement with South Korea June 17. This was the third time the trade pact signed by the Colombian and South Korean governments in February 2013 failed to win Congressional ratification. Concerned about the FTA’s...
Exporting the Brazilian Spirit, Cachaça
Is it serendipity or part of the Plano Brasil Maior to expand markets for Brazilian products? The World Cup’s opening day is also International Cachaça Day. Cachaça is Brazil’s national (distilled) spirit. And it is indeed one of the export products promoted by the...
Are Tennessee Whiskey Exports Tapping out Supplies?
Global demand is on the rise for whiskey, especially Tennessee whiskey, the fastest-growing category. Sales, foreign and domestic, are outpacing production at least 2 to 1, reports The Tennesseean – and the production process (requiring two-years of aging, at minimum)...
Follow BIG Shipment Volumes to Smallest Prices in Chemicals
by Brian J. McCormick, guest columnist Chemcost’s approach to global price discovery is based on the theory that volumes shipped point the way to competitive pricing. Call it a volume-centric approach. And we typically find in using this approach that global shipment...
South American Healthcare Market Leader Brazil Hosts Hospitalar
About 40% of the exhibitors at next week’s Hospitalar healthcare fair in Brazil will be from foreign countries – recognition of the strength of demand for imports in the country’s US$167-billion healthcare market. The US Commercial Service will be at Hospitalar to...
Best Price Data Yields Best Savings from EU-Sourced Chemicals
by Brian J. McCormick, guest columnist This is not another April Fool’s story. Finding what we at Chemcost Interactive* call “The New Cheap” – the markets that offer the lowest prices for chemicals commodities – takes digging into the data on global buying and selling...
Russia Sanctions: What about Vodka?
Russians have launched a retaliatory Internet campaign of tongue-in-cheek sanctions against US President Obama, Reuters reports. It includes Twitter users forbidding Obama from Russian vodka under the hashtag “MySanctions” (#МоиСанкции). There’s every chance Obama...
Trade Data Points to Potential Impact of Russia Sanctions
While the early rounds of US sanctions aimed at getting Russia to rethink its Crimea strategy have been confined to a small circle of government insiders and banking institutions, President Obama has signed an executive order that clears the way for sterner measures,...
Comparative Economics: Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance
Call it Latin America’s controlled experiment in economics (as the Wall Street Journal did recently): Along the Western seaboard, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru embrace free trade and are working to lift restrictions on the movement of capital, goods and services,...
Naming Names: Best-Price Alternative Sources for Chemicals
by Brian J. McCormick, guest columnist In past columns, Chemcost has explored where in the world US chemicals purchasers can find the “New Cheap.” This month, we focus on who can deliver lower prices, with a demonstration of how Datamyne’s US bill of lading import...