A young exporter today can send quotations to three continents before breakfast, track a container on a screen at lunchtime and receive payment advice before the day is out. That convenience makes it easy to forget how exporting worked before digitisation. For a long period, overseas trade depended on paper, patience, trusted intermediaries and a good deal of judgement that no software could provide.
Memoir, Travel and Working Life
Personal reflections on overseas travel, international business, friendship, relationships and the realities of a working life spent across many countries and cultures.
Is Foreign Trade and International Trade the Same?
Is foreign trade and international trade the same? Usually yes, but context matters. A clear explanation of usage, policy and business meaning.
What Is Foreign Trade Export?
Ask ten people what is foreign trade export, and several will give a loose answer about selling goods abroad. That is not wrong, but it is incomplete. Exporting is not merely putting products on a ship and sending an invoice. It is the organised sale of goods or services from one country to a customer in another, carried out within a framework of contracts, customs rules, transport arrangements, payment terms, risk management and local market knowledge.
That distinction matters because many failures in export markets begin with the assumption that overseas trade is simply domestic trade with more mileage. It is not. A firm may make an excellent product in Birmingham, Bristol or Belfast, but success abroad depends on much more than product quality. It depends on understanding the commercial and legal journey from factory gate to foreign buyer.
What Is International Trade?
What is international trade? A clear, experience-led explanation of how countries buy and sell goods, services, capital and expertise worldwide. A machine tool built in Germany, fitted with electronics from Japan, shipped through Rotterdam, insured in London and installed in a factory in Yorkshire tells you more about what is international trade than any textbook … Read more
How Often Did I Travel?
The 1980s were, for me, a period of almost continuous travel. By then I had already spent many years in international trade, but the next phase of my career took that experience to a quite different level. I had joined Bartol Plastics, part of the Hepworth Ceramic Holdings Group, almost by accident. Their Export Manager … Read more
What a lifetime of travel gave me
Travel allowed me to experience moments that remain vivid in my memory. I swam in the Dead Sea, stood before the Pyramids and the Sphinx, walked through the ruins of Babylon, and visited Mount Nebo, Petra and Jerash. I saw the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort in India, explored Kandy in Sri Lanka, snorkelled … Read more
Navigating Trade Regulations: A Guide for New Exporters
Understanding Trade Regulations Key Compliance Requirements for Exporters Tips for Navigating Trade Regulations Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Lifetime Friendships
The friendships formed through international travel were among the most enduring rewards of Gerald Bratley’s six decades in overseas business. One of the unexpected rewards of a career in international trade was not the countries visited, the contracts signed, or even the business successes achieved along the way. Those were important, of course, but they … Read more
When Britain Exported Engineering to the World
British engineering exports once carried the products, standards and expertise of UK industry to major projects throughout the world. Britain’s industrial export strength in the 1960s–1980s, was in heavy engineering, infrastructure, manufacturing, at that time UK companies supplied products and expertise to major projects globally, but over time there was a gradual shift toward finance … Read more
The Lost Art of the Business Trip
Categories Theme: How international business travel used to work. International business travel before email required careful preparation, personal judgement and the ability to work independently for weeks at a time. For most of my working life, international business was conducted face to face. A typical trip might last a month and cover several countries. Flights … Read more