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April 2010 Newsletter
 

What’s New?  

This Newsletter is.  
The purpose of the Global Trade newsletter is to:

1. Provide you with helpful tips for your business. This will include pointers for buying from China, and sales and marketing. Although the primary mission of GTS is to help our customers import their products from China, we understand that if you’re successful, we’re successful, so we have a vested interest in helping you sell more product.

2. Keep you updated on any issues that might affect your overseas purchases.
3. Keep you informed on what’s going on with Global Trade Specialists.

 

If it’s been awhile since we’ve been in touch and you need a refresher, information on who we are and what we do is shown in about us, at the end of this newsletter. China’s industrial base becomes more sophisticated every year; we are the doorway to the factories that can produce the product you need.
 
The GTS newsletter will be published on a monthly basis. I’ll do my best to keep the content short and to the point, knowing that your time is a precious resource.

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Tricks of the Trade

For shipments imported into the United States, U.S. Customs requires a bond. A customs bond is an insurance policy that guarantees U.S. Customs that they will be paid for the duty fee for your shipment. There are two types of bonds: a single entry bond, and a continuous, or annual bond. Your customs broker will charge you the single entry bond fee for each shipment, while an annual bond is purchased once a year and covers every shipment you bring in. 

The fee for a single entry bond will depend on the value of the shipment. For example, one customs broker in New York charges $5.50 for every $1,000.00 in product value. For a shipment worth $40,000.00, this would make the single entry bond fee more than $200.00.

The average cost for an annual bond is around $500.00.

If you’re importing three or more shipments a year, the savings of an annual bond could be substantial. Check into this with your customs broker. 

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China Watch

In this section, we’ll keep you informed on any issues that might affect your overseas purchases. This will include China’s Most Favored Nation status, U.S. and China trade policy, the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Yuan (aka Renminbi), fluctuations in labor costs or availability, and the political relationship between the U.S. and China.

For the purposes of this newsletter, we will focus on the U.S. and China. However, as we work with companies in other countries such as Australia, Canada and the U.K., we’ll keep an ear open for anything that might affect China trade with other nations as well.

Today, manufacturing companies in China are facing a shortage of workers. In the past, factories on the coast (where much of the China’s industrial base lies) were able to lure workers from the inland with higher pay rates. That’s now changed as inland workers are now able to make the same wages in their home city as they would if they relocated their family to the coast. Chinese manufacturing companies are busy these days, which intensifies the need for more help.

So what does this mean to you? More production with less employees means slower delivery times. To be on the safe side, allow for additional production time when placing your orders. The good news is that prices are holding steady; so far, inflation from wage increases hasn’t been an issue.

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About Us

Since 1991, Global Trade Specialists, Inc. has helped companies of all sizes get their products made in China from manufacturers of quality products. We are an American company who works with three trading groups in China with immediate access to thousands of manufacturing companies. We source most products made from metal, plastic, wood, stone, glass or textiles; from prototype to production. Many of our customers are first time importers; we’ll walk you through the entire process.

For information on how we work, see what we do.
Products we source.

Read testimonials from some of our customers.

Email us for a free quote.

 

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Sources:

Re Customs bond: Intercom Transport Group, NY, www.ict-usa.com 

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Please feel free to forward this newsletter. 

Mike Genung
Global Trade Specialists, Inc.
Colorado Springs, CO  80917

719-264-5007

fax: 719-573-6829 

Email: sales1@mgtrading.com

All material copyright 2010 Global Trade Specialists, Inc.
This newsletter may be reprinted as long as the copyrights and a link to the Global Trade home page (www.mgtrading.com) are shown at the end of the article.