Career Options in Foreign Trade

Foreign trade comprises of majorly two activities, exporting of the commodities and importing of the commodities, between two countries. To carry out all the responsibilities associated with these two major functions, one must have a thorough knowledge about the foreign trading policies of the concerned nations; legal issues involved; quarantine and quality control issues as well as related quality inspection and certification procedures; through knowledge about export-import management and all other relevant information associated with the field of foreign trade.

Prospective employers in this field include export-import agencies; export-import banks; foreign trade regulation agencies; multinationals those are active in the field of internal business and foreign trade, forex firms and government export-import directorates. Candidates with relevant qualification in the field of foreign trade or international business or export-import management are usually preferred by these organizations to fill vacancies existing for various career positions such as international business manages; export managers; import managers; forex mangers; quality control managers; procurement managers; certification officers; documentation officers and so on.

Many management institutes and institutes of foreign trade offer highly specialized courses in the field of foreign trade and international business. Management institutes offer courses such as MBA in International Business; Post Graduate Diploma in International Business Management etc while Foreign Trade Institutes offer courses such as Post Graduate Diploma in Foreign Trade; MBA in Foreign Trade etc. There are several export-import organisation that conduct short term diploma and certificate level courses in Export-Import Management, Export Marketing etc.

Export Manager/International Business Manager is responsible for the export business of an organization by bidding contracts for foreign consignments and delivering the same on time at the foreign location after clearing through a number of procedures such as quality control certification, export document verification, customs clearing, and collaboration with a trusted freight forwarding agencies and foreign buyers.

Forex (Foreign Exchange) officers are mainly employed in forex banks and they are responsible to carry out all foreign exchange activities on behalf their clients.