HSBC Launches Online Trade Tool to Track Trading Patterns
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 information from the United Nation’s Comtrade database, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Direction of Trade Statistics, the trade tool features comprehensive trade data for 48 different countries. An interactive world map allows users to view a country’s:
For example, the tool shows that in 2009 Germany accounted for 8.2% of world trade, exported US$113bn worth of goods to France but faced the greatest competition in its chief export, motor vehicles, from the UK, US, Italy, France and China.
Mark Emmerson, head of trade and supply chain Europe, HSBC, said: “An increasing number of companies, from more countries and sectors than ever before, are trading internationally. The unique trade tool has been specifically designed to help distil complex information into a user-friendly format, and will allow businesses to explore the world’s changing trade patterns and further their understanding of how businesses in their particular sector are performing around the world.”
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. Next month, HSBC will take 30 of Europe’s leading businesses on a ‘trade exchange’ to Shanghai, where European and Asian business leaders will gather to explore the immense trade potential already evidenced in China, and discuss how European businesses can best redefine their business plans in a global context.