Really Useful Sites for International Trade Professionals Issue 47, Volume 2 Issue 23

[Federation of International Trade Associations]

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Really Useful Sites for International Trade Professionals Issue 47,  Volume 2 
Issue 23
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November 26, 2002
Issue 47
VOLUME 2 Issue 23

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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. WELCOME
2. OUR FEATURED COUNTRY SITE -- CHINA WWW VIRTUAL LIBRARY
3. SKYMINDER
4. PROVEN INTERNATIONAL MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS - WITHOUT THE
HEADACHES
5. INTERNET LEGAL RESOURCES
6. TWO TRAVEL SITES

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WELCOME
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Here's your latest issue of Really Useful Sites for
International Trade Professionals. This free bi-weekly
newsletter reviews useful Web sites from the Web Resources
database at FITA's International Trade/ Import-Export Portal at 
http://www.fita.org, an excellent source for trade leads, 
news, events, and a link library of 4,000+ sites related to
international trade. 

My name is John McDonnell, and for years I've been writing about 
useful Web sites for businesspeople, in various publications.
Now I've focused on international trade, using my Web research
skills to find sites that are useful for international
businesspeople, and some sites that are just plain fun for
anyone.

 Here are the sites:


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OUR FEATURED COUNTRY SITE -- CHINA WWW VIRTUAL LIBRARY
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There was a time when trade with China was a blip on the radar
screen of the U.S. economy, but that's no more. With a 20 percent
annual growth rate since 1988 in the value of merchandise traded
with the U.S., China is fast becoming one of America's largest
trading partners. If you'd like to learn more about this growing
relationship, one of the best places to go is the China WWW
Virtual Library ( http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/ ).
Virtual Library sites are known for being storehouses of reliable
information, and this one is no different. You'll find the most
useful links for international trade in the Business & Economy
section ( http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/igbiz.htm ).
Here are reviews and links to sites about currency conversion,
foreign exchange rates, business directories, economic
statistics, breaking news, political analysis, law, and much
more. This is a can't miss site.

There are lots more links to China at the FITA site. Go to
FITA's International Trade Web Resources at http://fita.org/webindex, 
click on Regional Resources and Multi-Lateral Trading Areas in the 
left column or "Search by Country or Region" in the right column, and 
then go to Asia and select China in the pop-up window. Or simply type 
"China" in the search box at http://www.fita.org.


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SKYMINDER
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Although there's lots of free business information on the
Internet, there are times when you need more detail than a free
site can provide. For occasions like this you need to use a fee-
based site. One that looks promising is SkyMinder (
http://www.skyminder.com/default.asp ). This site claims to have
data on millions of public and private companies worldwide. Here
you'll find comprehensive company profiles, detailed financial
information, credit information, market research, industry
surveys, news, listings of executives at each company, and more.
You can download your search results into dossier-style reports,
and you only pay for the reports you view. There's some free
information at the site -- e.g., there are capsule reports on
18,000 companies worldwide -- but for more in-depth reports you
need to sign up for the fee-based service.


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PROVEN INTERNATIONAL MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS - WITHOUT THE
HEADACHES
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Has this ever happened to you? You travel overseas and you cell
phone won't work? Or you rented one or bought one from a
wireless company and it didn't work? Or it did work, but it was
impossible to contact anyone for help? Or it worked, you could
contact someone for help, but the bill showed up two months late 
and it didn't make any sense anyway? Want a better way to keep
connected while you traveling internationally? 

FITA has arranged to help international travelers who are
frustrated with mobile phones that will not work overseas, with
companies that provide phones that don't work as promised, with
little customer support and unexplainable bills through a new
relationship with Globafone ( http://fita.globafone.com ). Globafone's
clients range from small, dynamic businesses to large, demanding 
corporations to the federal government. From GSM phones from
four different network operators covering 140 countries to
phones for Japan, Korea, North and South America to four
different brands of satellite service, no matter where you are
traveling, GlobaFone has a world-class global wireless solution. 
With reasonable rates, flexible programs and exceptional client
care, GlobaFone helps you succeed globally.



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INTERNET LEGAL RESOURCES
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Some Web sites are hard to categorize, because they have so much
more to offer than their title suggests. An example is Internet
Legal Resources ( http://www.wmitchell.edu/library/resources/ ),
created by the William Mitchell College of Law. There are plenty
of U.S. and international legal resources on this site, if that's
what you're interested in, but there are also a lot of other
resources here. There are links to dictionaries and
encyclopedias, news headlines, company research, weather and
maps, travel resources, writing guides, public records research,
and search engines, to name a few.



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TWO TRAVEL SITES
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My 20th wedding anniversary is coming up in May, and I want to
surprise my wife by taking her on a trip. I'm lucky, because the
Web has so many great sites for travel research and reservations.
Here are two of them.

Need to make a hotel reservation fast? Go to Hootle 
( http://www.hootle.com ). This site is simple and elegant. You
just type in the name of a city or country, and you'll get a list
of hotels to check out. Each listing has a picture, a rating, a
description (sometimes with photos of the rooms), and details
about the amenities included (in some cases even the model
numbers of the beds). You can also check room availability, and
even book your room here.

At Your-Travelsite ( http://www.your-travelsite.com/ ) you can do
everything -- book a flight or hotel room, reserve a car,
research a city, check out cruise and golf packages, buy trip
insurance, find great deals on travel, and much more.



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_________________________________________________________________
Published by Federation of International Trade Associations 
(mailto:address@hidden)
Copyright (c) 2002 Federation of International Trade Associations. All rights 
reserved.


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