Research Paper on:
Overview of Countertrade

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
people of different cultures, and these are carefully crafted and cemented. Much attention needs to be paid to culture conflicts, currency matters and general protocol. Additionally, sometimes those in other  nations need extra help. There are specific methods of helping those on the other end of the trading table, who might also be located at the other end of the  world. One such method of help is called countertrade. Countertrade is essentially listening to an international customers needs and actually trying to help them to meet those needs  (West, 2002). It might be in the form of assisting them to get up to date on technology, or helping them in implementing a new management protocol, or assisting them  to find financial resources (2002). Whatever form the help takes, the concept is the same. Countertrade is really just an umbrella term which covers a wide array of commercial mechanisms  that are related to reciprocal trade ("Countertrade," 2002). Barter is one example, and it is perhaps the oldest and best known of all (2002). Other examples like buyback,  tolling and switch-trading, also evolved to meet the requirements of a sophisticated world economy and these generally involve the exchange of goods or services to finance purchases as opposed  to using cash alone (2002). Countertrade represents about 10-15% (2002, p.PG) of all world trade. Clearly, with a nice chunk of trade being related to countertrade, one should realize that  its importance should not be minimized. In fact, the importance of countertrade as a trading tool has become greater, particularly since early 1970s and particularly in markets where there  is a shortage of foreign exchanges (2002). Here, countertrade may be the only effective marketing tool for doing business (2002). Generally speaking, a countertrade contract will merge an export