International trade is nothing butthe process of purchase and sale, which is carried out between sellers, buyers, intermediaries from different countries. The structure of international trade includes the import and export of goods, and the relationship between them is called the trade balance.
Commodity structure of international tradechanges and is subject to the impact of scientific and technological revolution, as well as the deepening of the division of labor. At the moment, the most important thing in international trade is products that belong to the manufacturing industry. Equipment, machinery, chemicals, vehicles - these are the types of products whose share is growing particularly rapidly. And the trade in high-tech products and science-intensive goods is developing very dynamically. This encourages the exchange of services between countries, especially those that have a communicative, production, financial, credit and scientific and technical nature. World trade in goods for industrial purposes is stimulated by trade in services (leasing, consulting, information-computing, engineering).
The structure of international trade indicatesratio in the total volume of any parts, depending on the selected feature. The general structure of international trade shows the ratio of imports and exports in shares or percentages. In money terms, the share of exports is always less than the share of imports. And in the physical volume, this ratio is equal to one. The commodity structure of international trade shows what proportion of these or other goods in its total volume.
Some products do not participate at all in the worldturnover. Therefore, they are all subdivided into non-tradable and tradable. The first group are those that, due to various reasons (strategic importance for the country, noncompetitiveness) do not move between different countries. And the first group is goods that can move freely.
When the structure of international trade is characterized by specialists, two groups of goods stand out: finished products and raw materials.
Geographical structure of international tradecharacterized by the distribution of goods turnover in the directions of various commodity flows. Currently, there is a situation that countries that are developed industrially and have a more developed economy, most of all trade with each other. Developing countries are oriented to the markets of those countries that are industrially developed. 25 percent of world trade turnover - this is their share in world trade. Recently, an increasing role is played by countries, called the new industrial (Asian), but oil-exporting countries lose their importance in world trade.
International trade has different forms. By the number of objects, it is one-and multi-disciplinary. There is also a division according to the number of parties to bilateral and multilateral. In terms of territorial coverage, world trade is divided into local, regional, interregional and global. There is also a division of the structure of ties into intra-firm, inter-industry, intersectoral, horizontal, vertical and mixed.
Currently, international trade isan important role in the economic development of many countries, as well as regions and the world community. Foreign trade is now considered the most powerful factor of economic growth. And now many countries depend heavily on international commodity exchange. Such a dynamic growth in international trade is influenced by such factors as the internationalization of production, the development of the division of labor between countries, the activities and existence of TNC transnational corporations, as well as the scientific and technological revolution.
