international presence

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International presence

The ability to sell to the rest of the world is vital to the economic success of the UK. It is also essential for organisations particularly as they get larger. The UK’s biggest exported products are petroleum, cars and telecom equipment. It is not just products that are sold from the UK, but also services. Banking, shipping services, insurance and tourism are also big earners for UK businesses. International trade is therefore very important for the economic well being of the UK.

One of the main problems with trading within a global environment is uncertainty. Trading with organisations outside the UK raises a number of potential problems. For example organisations will want guarantees that they will be paid, they will want to know how quickly they will be paid, there may be concern that goods will get to customers on time, there may be concerns about the quality of goods and services.

In a globally competitive environment there are simply more uncertainties. This is mainly because the organisation that is being traded with is thousands of miles away.

The UK government Is well aware of these doubts, but is keen to reduce such fears so that more organisations can trade internationally and therefore boost the wealth of the country. The Department of Trade and Industry helps organisations who want to trade and invest overseas. To do this they have to set up an organisation called UK trade and investment.

UK trade and investment help organisations to develop their export capabilities. They do this by providing a range of expert advice as well as data that can be relied upon. For example UK trade and investment companies have local international trade advisors who will work with organisations wanting to trade overseas. These advisors will help the exporter to understand some of the linguistic and cultural issues that arise from trading overseas and offer a range of tools that can be used to help those wanting to export. For example overseas staff look for business opportunities for UK businesses. They also liaise with the main international funding agencies and provide a host of information about new markets from specialists around the world.

European Union

The European Union is a political and economic community of twenty-seven  with  and  features, primarily located in . It traces its origins to the  formed in 1957 by the  between six European countries. Since then the EU has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. In 1993, the  established the current legal framework.

The European Union currently has 27    which are collectively known as member states: , , , , the , , , , , , , , , , , , , , the , , , , , , , , and the . There are currently three official candidate countries, , the  and . In addition the western Balkan countries of , ,  and  are officially recognised as potential candidates.

There are a number of key events and features of the European Union:

The single European act.

The aim of the single European act was to kick start the flagging progress towards integration by setting and working towards a deadline for the completion of the single European market in 1992. It was also an exercise in tidying up loose ends. It was signed in 1986 by all the member countries and included provisions for some institutional changes, some additional policies and a treaty for European political co-operation. The object of a single market was to remove as many barriers to trade as possible.

Maastrict

This was convened as part of the on-going process of European integration. Although the single European act went a long way towards establishing a single market and tidying up the various issues related to integration , it was not the finished product. At the time there were aspects of integration which were and still are incomplete and questions and problems over certain policy areas, remain unresolved. The summit meeting at Maastrict was the culmination of these events and the agreements concluded at Maastrict formed the basis of the treaty on European union.

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Common agricultural policy

The creation of a common agricultural policy was proposed in 1960 by the European commission. The six member countries wanted to intervene in agriculture to control how agriculture was organised and guarantee prices for goods. They wanted to increase productivity, ensure a fair standard of living for those within the European Union, stabilise markets and provide a secure availability of supplies, while providing the consumer with reasonable prices for agricultural products. The CAP is a system that maintains the prices of products by using subsides to support production. Subsides have helped to make EU countries ...

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