Or perhaps I should say Happy Holidays?

Apparently our friends in the US are getting themselves a bit worked up over the more traditional Christmas greeting.  They feel its insulting to people of other faiths, this has got to be political correctness gone a step too far.

Anyway, since most visitors to this site are international import-export traders, I can rest assured you won’t be fussed about a good natured greeting.

When you trade with people from every part of the world you have to be far more accommodating towards foreign customs.  Tolerating, understanding, participating in and even enjoying foreign cultural events.  Even when you don’t accept the underlying belief systems, show them respect and you will build the trust you need for successful business.

Keep those trade leads coming and I’ll see you in the New Year.
           

There was an interesting feature on the news yesterday.  It was a look at cotton farming in the States and Africa.

The American farmers are subsidised by their government and so can afford to flood the market with cheap (and, it must be said, high quality) cotton, effectively pricing out third world farmers.  But what really struck me was the difference in technology levels.

They showed the American farmer mowing down acres of cotton fields with a huge mechanical harvester; then gave us a shot of a number of Africans happily compressing (hand-picked) cotton with their feet, accompanied by some traditional chants.

Charmingly rustic as the Africans were, they just can’t compete.  One of those harvesters apparently collects more cotton in a day than an African farmer can in a lifetime.  And if the subsidies were stopped it’s countries like Brazil that would fill the gap not Africans.

Clearly ensuring that goods are sold at a fair price is just one factor that needs to be addressed in the fight against poverty in Africa.

To grab a bigger share of world trade Africans will need to increase volumes, improve manufacturing processes and raise standards.   And the best way forward is a balanced combination of external technological help (for the short term) and home-grown innovation.
           

Prompted by that image of a pot of honey that’s being rotated on the trade lead pages (so tempting isn’t it!) I’ve been reading up on honey.

How is honey formed? - Bees collect the nectar of flowering plants and after regurgitating it a few times (yuk!) it is stored in the honeycomb for use as a food source during the winter months.

Honey is sweeter than sugar and comes in a variety of flavours (generally the flavour of the main flower that it’s made from).

Since flowers are found all over the world you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that honey is produced all around the world as well. 

Many countries both import and export honey.  This is because of the many different flavours – people like variety.

Major exporting countries include China, Argentina, Mexico and Canada. 

Where do they export to?  Middle Eastern countries -  Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen; European countries, United States and Canada to name a few.

A search on the portal for honey brings up two Sell Leads.  One from Turkey and another from Brazil.

The Turkish lead does a very good job in selling its product - “Selected honey from wild mountains in Turkey for healthy and good life”, it also mentions the different flavours and includes that image of a honey pot.  Well done freedsel, that’s what a good Sell Lead should look like.

We’ve been looking at some of the statistics from November.  They make interesting reading, here are some of the facts concerning the Sell Leads:

Countries

Traders from 30 countries across all continents submitted Sell Leads in November. The Asian countries dominated - Chinese traders being especially active with 52% of the trade leads.

Categories

The categories were well distributed: Chemicals, Metals and Minerals category taking the largest chunk with 14% of the trade leads.

Messages

Sell leads in the Construction category received the most messages but, as a proportion of the number of Sell leads in each category, the Food and Beverages category performed best. 

So you were more likely to receive enquiries about your trade lead if it concerned Food and Beverages - hardly surprising we humans like our food!