MALAYSIA
Our Featured Country
With a GDP per capita of $7,653 Malaysia is one of the richest countries in southeast Asia. The population, about 27 million, is young: the median age is 24 years old. There are many business opportunities in the country, although selling to Malaysia is not always easy due to quotas, import licenses and customs duties for products that compete with Malaysian industry. The U.S. Commercial Service’s Country Commercial Guide for Malaysia as well the website of the U.S. Commercial Service’s Malaysia office offer some of the best resources for help entering the market.
The Malaysian economy is highly dependent on exports, particularly to the US. Malaysia exports mainly electrical machinery, mineral fuels, palm oil and natural rubber. MATRADE is the Malaysian trade promotion agency . Its website has excellent information about Malaysian industries and economics as well as links to business directories such as the Malaysian SME Business Directory.
Direct investment in Malaysia gets a lot of government support. Although labor cost can be as much as twice as expensive as in China, the labor force is well educated and the infrastructure is well developed. Recent reforms such as tax relief programs have been enacted to attract FDI. Learn more about investing in Malaysia on the website of the Malaysia Industrial Development Authority. And learn more about the country on the website of the Malaysian embassy in Washington .
And don’t forget FITA's Malaysia Country Profile for yet more Malaysia links and resources.
STARTING IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE
Learn How to Start
We often receive phone calls and emails from budding entrepreneurs who want to set up businesses importing and/or exporting. The knowledge and skills necessary for successful trading are quite complicated. But fortunately the internet has hundreds of websites that can help and quite a few online training programs that can enhance your knowledge. FITA has many links to these sites at the FITA “Tools of Trade Miniportal.” Here you will find links to trading, government information and many other useful resources for starting up and running your international trade business. Take a look and successful trading!
JURISINT
International Trade Law
Browse this website and find lots of useful legal links. Jurisint is a multilingual collection (English, Spanish, and French) of legal information on international trade. It is maintained by a partnership between the International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO, LexUM of the Center for Research in Public Law at the University of Montreal, Canada and Juripole from the University of Nancy, France. Among the types of information available on the website are: links to most arbitration and mediation centers in the world, links to lawyer associations throughout the world and a database of trade treaties and international conventions. And take a look at FITA's Useful Sites for Legal Resources for International Business.
SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE
Keep in Touch about Trade
Anybody who uses the internet regularly is familiar with social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace. With the exception of LinkedIn, these networks were primarily developed and are mostly used by people wishing to find old or new friends, play games, establish communities in their cities or in their areas of personal interest. But these networks also are becoming centers of international business networking and promotion.
LinkedIn was developed specifically for professional networking. Get a free account and do a search on “international trade.” You will find more than 300 groups with discussions about trade, international investment and much more. Twitter, where messages can only be 140 characters long, also has a surprising amount of international trade content. Many experts, attorneys, government officials and other international trade professionals regularly post news and links to events and expertise related to trade. Facebook and MySpace do have some international trade content, but their focus is more on non-business topics. And look for new social media especially for international trade. World Business Fair was recently launched. And look for an announcement from FITA about an exciting new social media website, GlobalTrade.net, which will be BETA released in November.
U.S. COMMERCIAL SERVICE EVENTS AND WEBINARS
Resources for Going Global
The U.S. Commercial Service, a division of the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, sponsors and participates in many events and webinars that help U.S. exporters sell overseas and help overseas buyers learn about U.S. exports. The Commercial Service has a searchable database of these events worldwide at http://www.export.gov/each/trade_events.asp. Below are some upcoming events:
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FITA CAREER HEADQUARTERS - FEATURED JOB
Senior Export Compliance Officer
In the FITA Career Headquarters job seekers can now apply for jobs online and post their resume--free of charge--in an exclusive database that will be searched by hundreds of industry employers seeking employees with international degrees and/or related work experience. Featured this week is a listing for an Senior Export Compliance Officer for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Click here to browse more than 700 other positions!
Employers - Click here to advertise your job openings on FITA's Career HQ. Let the jobs come to you! Employers are looking for people with international skills. Post your resume TODAY and reap the rewards of the FITA Career HQ! And with a FITA Career HQ job agent, you can decide what kind of job you are looking for and let the system do the searching for you. Simply set up specific search parameters in a Job Agent, and whenever a job is posted that matches your criteria, you'll be notified automatically via email. It's that easy!
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