HSBC Commercial Banking in Europe has unveiled a new online trade tool that tracks the world’s trading patterns to help businesses identify future international opportunities specific to their sector.
Bringing together for the first time information from the United Nation’s Comtrade database, the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund’s Direction of Trade Statistics, the trade tool features comprehensive trade data for 48 countries.
An interactive world map allows users to view a country’s percentage of world trade and shows how a country ranks in trade importance. It focuses on the top 10 trading partners, split by sector, so businesses can identify which countries hold the most opportunities for them. It features imports and exports, valued in US dollars, to each of its top trading partners.
For instance, the tool shows that in 2009 Germany accounted for 8.2 per cent of world trade, exported $113 billion worth of goods to France, but faced the greatest competition in its chief export, motor vehicles, from the UK, the US, Italy, France and China.
The trade tool can be accessed via the HSBC Trade Connections’ website www.hsbc.com/tradeconnections, and features a wealth of analysis and insight for businesses that are exploring further international opportunities.
The new resource is part of the bank’s Trade Connections campaign to provide European businesses with the insight and knowledge they need to maximise potential overseas opportunities.
HSBC recently hosted 30 of Europe’s leading businesses on a trade exchange to Shanghai, where European and Asian business leaders gathered to explore the significant trade potential already evidenced in China, and discussed how European businesses can best redefine their business plans in a global context.
“Naturally, this shift to a more globalised outlook presents both challenges and opportunities for firms looking beyond the boundaries of their domestic market,” HSBC Malta’s head of commercial banking Michel Cordina said.
“Through the Trade Exchange, HSBC will bring together some of the best business thinkers and entrepreneurial leaders to help European businesses understand the way the world is changing and how they can benefit.”
Gaetano Sammut, senior trade and supply chain manager, added that by being present in all the main market places of the world, HSBC is ideally placed to identify global shifting trends and trading patterns, collate and analyse the data and make it easily available to local clients.
HSBC Malta has invested in new products in an effort to improve its trade and supply chain service, aimed at innovatively financing the increasing working capital needs of local importers and exporters.