Transportation Cost Control Strategies

15 Instant Impact Cost Control Strategies / Leveraging Trade Agreements – Chapter 9 May 3, 2020

Is your sales team actively taking advantage of the many Trade Agreements currently in place?  TA’s (also known as Regional Trade Agreements) are specifically designed to help you compete against exporters from other parts of the world in the same industry. Don’t think for one second, your competitors are not taking advantage of these agreements to close the deal. You might want to think this over and do some serious research to give you that edge over your competitors. The bottom line is that if you don’t take advantage for TA’s then you are definitely loosing out to competitors. I can’t stress this enough.

Some TA’s have been in place for decades while others are recent. Everyone knows global trade is growing by leaps and bounds but did you know that TA’s play a very important role for this growth.

Sure the “nuts and bolts” to comply with these agreements has a significant administrative burden and cost but the opportunity of benefiting from the increased export sales far exceed the cost of record keeping. For years Canadian and U.S. customs authorities have been preaching “Record Keeping Practices” for importers and exporters. If you have a “record keeping plan” in place then collecting the necessary information to comply with free trade agreement regulations should not be too difficult to include them in your plan.

TA’s are agreements set in place by two or more countries where duty and other trade barriers are lowered or eliminated. This allows you to penetrate their market easier and quicker than exporters would without a free trade agreement in place. An importer paying a duty rate of 16% on an item can potentially save 16% or more when importing from a supplier in a country where a free trade agreement is in place.

Some of the free trade agreements currently in place with the U.S. are with Korea, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Chile, Peru and many more.

Some of the free trade agreements currently in place with Canada are with Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Israel, Peru, U.S. and many more.

Take advantage of these agreements today and see your export sales grow exponentially.