1. What kind of expenses should you expect in your own import/export business?
Answer: (page 148) Stationery and business cards, telephone, answering machines, computer, calculator, copier, facsimile, internet web site, rent, utilities, office furniture, inventory, business checking account, salaries and other staff expenses, travel.
2. Why are banks seldom the source of start-up capital?
Answer: (Page 146) because banks seldom take risks. They generally expect a track record and collateral.
3. Where can you go for financing?
Answer: (page 146) Most often, the best sources are relatives or friends, people who know you and believe in you.
4. What are the three legal forms used to organize your business?
Answer: (Page147) sole proprietorship, partnership and corporation.
5. Describe the process of using a fictitious name for a business?
Answer: (page 147) A request to use a fictitious name or DBA is required in most places. The cost of registering your fictitious name varies from country to country.
6. What is the biggest mistake business owners make while planning cost projections?
Answer: (page 154) people minimize cost projections; it is not unusual to underestimate expenses.
7. How do the cash flow and the profit and loss projections serve double duty?
Answer: (page 155) they quantify the sales and operating goals, including use of personnel and other resources expressed in dollars and time.
8. What are the 10 commandments of starting an overseas business?
Answer: (page 150) 1. Limit the primary participants to people who not only can collaborate and contribute directly, but also experienced in some form of international business. 2. Define your import/export market in terms of what is to be bought, precisely whom, and why. 3. Concentrate all available resources on two or three products within given time period. 4. Obtain the best information though your own industry. 5. Write down your business plan and work from it. 6. “Walk on two legs”. Pick a good freight forwarder or customs house broker to walk alongside your banker. 7. Translate your literature into the languages of the countries in which you will do business. 8. Use the service of Department of Commerce and Treasury. 9. Limit the effects of your inevitable mistakes by starting slowly. 10. Communicate frequently and well with your international contacts, and visit the overseas markets and manufacturers.
9. What is Procedural “transparency”? Explain.
Answer: (page 259) must make procedures transparent to applicants from other NAFTA countries.
10. How does NAFTA approach Agriculture, Technical Standards, and Government Procurement?
Answer: (page 258) Agriculture: NAFTA sets out bilateral undertakings on cross-border trade in agricultural products, one between Canada and Mexico and the other between Mexico and US. Technical standards: NAFTA is designed to create a harmonization of technical standards in its three member’s countries and to prohibit countries from using technological standards as barrier to market entry. Government Procurement: the agreement opens a significant portion of the government procurement market in each NAFTA country on a non-discriminatory basis to suppliers from other NAFTA countries for goods, services and construction services.
11. What is The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI)?
Answer: (page 261) is intended to stimulate trade with Caribbean nations.
12. What are the differences between the Association of Caribbean Sates, Caribbean Common Market and Caricom-Bolivia Free Trade Agreement, Caricom–Venezuela Free Trade Agreement?
Answer: (page 262) Association of Caribbean states: market of 200 million consumers provides preferential tariff to Antigua y Barbuda, Cuba, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Barbados, Nicaragua, Bahamas, Dominica, Paraguay, Belize, El Salvador, Granada, St. Lucia, Costa Rica, Trinidad y Tobago, Haiti, Surinam, Colombia and Venezuela. Caribbean Common Market: Market of 7
