REFERENCE WORKS - COUNTRIES & CITIES - 30.09.2010

Doing business abroad

Export

First of all, you should check out general export information. An excellent source is the Import and Export section on the HM Revenue and Customs website (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/index.htm - Businesses & Corporations). It provides trade statistics, information on the UK Tariff, international trade developments, etc. Practical guides can be found in Business Link (http://www.businesslink.gov.uk - International Trade): getting started, industry overviews and regulations, practicalities of importing and exporting, etc.If you’re planning to travel abroad, check the health information provided by the Health Risks National Travel Health Network and Centre (http://www.nathnac.nhs.uk/ds/map_world.aspx). And to get acquainted with local customs, check out the excellent Kwintessential (http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/country-profiles.html), which also has a Doing business in... section (http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/doing-business-in.html).

CIA World Factbook: the reference

Country information can be found on lots of international websites. We visited several of them, such as Infoplease (http://www.infoplease.com) and Atlapedia (http://www.atlapedia.com) or the BBC Country Profiles (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles). They aren’t bad, but it’s obvious that the renowned CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html) remains the key reference. The country files it presents keep amazing us by their completeness in terms of, for instance, economic or demographic data. Select a country in the roll-down menu on the homepage and a page is opened of which the sections (government, economy, communications, etc.) can be expanded. They contain highly detailed information. The Factbook is updated every year.

NationMaster

NationMaster (http://www.nationmaster.com/countries/) is based on the information from the CIA World Factbook. It collects statistical data in dozens of categories, ranging from agriculture and background to government and industry,media and taxation. It’s sorted neatly in tables. In short: highly recommended if you’re looking for concrete figures.

Don’t forget these extra tools!

Are you looking for maps of a country or region? There are atlas websites such as HRW World Atlas (http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/world.htm), but Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) is more flexible. Do you wish to find out the time zone of a given country? Check this via Timeanddate (http://www.timeanddate.com) or Worldtimezone (http://www.worldtimezone.com). The different newspapers (and their websites) of all countries are collected on Newspaper Country (http://www.newspapercountry.com), whilst news per country is aggregated on NewsNow (http://www.newsnow.co.uk).

Converting currencies is possible in Google: simply type something like “100 usd in pounds” in the search field. And to have text translated from or to the local language, Google Translate (http://translate.google.com) is an excellent tool; especially now that it also offers audio support: this enables you to check out the pronunciation.