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Irrevocable Letter of Credit
A letter of credit in which the specified payment is guaranteed by the bank if all terms and conditions are met by the drawer. Compare: Revocable Letter of Credit.
Japan Export Information Center
The Japan Export Information Center (JBIC) provides information on doing business in Japan, market entry alternatives, market information and research, and product standards and testing requirements, tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The Center maintains a commercial library and participates in private and government-sponsored seminars on doing business in Japan. JEIC is operated by the International Trade Administration of the Department of Commerce.
Joint Committee for Investment and Trade
The JCIT, was established in October 1990 to demonstrate U.S. and Mexican commitment to greater economic cooperation. The Committee identifies trade and investment opportunities and coordinates trade promotion events.
Joint Venture
A business undertaking in which more than one firm shares ownership and control of production and/or marketing.
Kokusai Denshin Denwa
The Kokusai Denshin Denwa Company, KDD, was established in 1953 but traces its history back to 1871 and the establishment of its predecessor organizations. For more than a century, the company was Japan’s sole supplier of international telecommunications services and today remains Japan’s leading international carrier. KDD is Japan’s signatory to INTELSAT and INMARSAT.
Less Developed Country
An LDC is a country with low per capita gross national product. Terms such as third world, poor, developing nations, and underdeveloped have also been used to describe less developed countries.
Lesser Developed Countries
The classification LLDC was developed by the United Nations to give some guidance to donor agencies and countries about an equitable allocation of foreign assistance. The criteria for designating a country an LLDC, originally adopted by the UN Committee for Development Planning in 1971, have been modified several times. Criteria have included low: per-capita- income, literacy, .and manufacturing share of the country’s total gross domestic product. There is continuing concern that the criteria should be more robust and less subject to the possibility of easy fluctuation of a country between less developed and least developed status.
Letter of Credit (L/C)
A financial document issued by a bank at the request of the consignee guaranteeing payment to the shipper for cargo if certain terms and conditions are fulfilled. Normally it contains a brief description of the goods, documents required, a shipping date, and an expiration date after which payment will no longer be made.
License
There are licenses, authorized by the Bureau of Export Administration, that permit the export of non-strategic goods to specified countries without the need for a validated license. No prior written authorization is required and no individual license is issued. There are approximately twenty different types of licenses, each represented by a symbol. The reason so many licenses exist is to accommodate the various exporting situations that the Bureau of Export Administration has determined should not require an Individual Validated License.
Licensing
A business arrangement in which the manufacturer of a product (or a firm with proprietary rights over a certain technology, trademark, etc.) grants permission to some other group or individual to manufacture that product (or make use of that proprietary material) in return for specified royalties or other payment.
Lighter
An open or covered barge towed by a tugboat and used mainly in harbors and inland waterways.
Line Release System
The Line Release System, a part of Customs’ Automated Commercial System, is designed for the release and tracking of shipments through the use of personal computers and bar code technology. To qualify for line release, a commodity must have a history of invoice accuracy, and be selected by local Customs districts on the basis of high volume. To release the merchandise, Customs reads the bar code into a personal computer, verifies that the bar code matches the invoice data, and enters the quantity. The cargo release is transmitted to the Automated Commercial System, which establishes an entry and the requirement for an entry summary, and provides the Automated Broker Interface System participants with release information.
Liquidation System
The Liquidation System, a part of Customs’ Automated Commercial System, closes the file on each entry and establishes a batch filing number which is essential for recovering an entry for review or enforcement purposes. An entry liquidation is a final review of the entry. P.L. 95-410 (Customs Procedural Reform and Simplification Act of 1978) requires that all liquidations be performed within one year from the date of consumption entry or final withdrawal on a warehouse entry. Three one-year extensions are permitted.
Lome Convention
A 1975 agreement between the European Community (BC) and 62 African, Caribbean, and Pacific states (mostly former colonies of the BC members). The agreement covers some aid provisions as well as trade and tariff preferences for the ACP countries when shipping to the BC. Lome grew out of the 1958 Treaty of Rome’s “association” with the 18 African colonies! countries that had ties with Belgium and France. The ACP members are: Angola, Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Manifest. See: Shipper’s Manifest.
Marine Cargo Insurance
Broadly, insurance covering the loss or damage of goods at sea. Marine insurance will typically compensate the owner for losses sustained from fire, shipwreck, piracy, and various other causes, but excludes losses which can be legally recovered from the carrier. Compare: Credit Risk Insurance.
Market Access
Market access refers to the openness of a national market to foreign products. Market access reflects a government’s willingness to permit imports to compete relatively unimpeded with similar domestically produced goods.
Market Disruption
Market disruption refers to the situation which is created when a surge of imports in a given product line cause sales of domestically produced goods in a particular country to decline to an extent that the domestic producers and their employees suffer major economic hardship.
Market Oriented Cooperation Plan
The MOCP, established in 1990, is aimed at improving long-term business relations between Japan’s automotive manufacturers and U.S. auto parts suppliers.
Market Promotion Program
The Market Promotion Program (MPP) was authorized by the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 and is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Under the MPP, surplus stocks or funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation are used to partially reimburse agricultural organizations conducting specific foreign market development projects for eligible products in specified countries. Proposals for the MPP programs are developed by trade organizations and private firms. Activities financed by the programs vary from commodity to commodity, and include activities such as market research, construction of a three-story wood demonstration building, construction of a model feed mill, and consumer promotion activities. (MPP is similar to the Targeted Export Assistance (TEA) program which was repealed by the 1990 Farm Bill.)