What Other Governments Are Doing in Regard to Trade Information Service

Abstract

T HE service which a government performs in the promotion of the foreign trade of its citizens begins in the work of its executive department in creating the foundation of commercial intercourse-the negotiation of commercial treaties. It is continued in the legislative branch, where ratification of these treaties is effected and where resides the authority for assisting foreign trade by means of subsidies, export credits acts and numerous other types of legislative enactments designed to this end. The scene then shifts back to the executive branch where, under its foreign office or department of state, the consular corps carries on, along with its multitude of other duties, the task of forwarding reports of a commercial interest. In recent years, under the pressure of post-war economic conditions, various governments have begun to treat in a more intensive way the problem of providing accurate commercial information for their citizens. For this purpose various methods have been used, the principal one being the organization of special corps of experts, known as commercial attaches, commercial counsellors, commercial secretaries, trade commissioners, etc., stationed abroad at strategic points. The commercial attache service is mainly a post-war development. The extent to which this type of service has grown in recent years is indicated by the fact that to-day thirty-eight governments, besides our own, maintain commercial envoys in something like 246 foreign posts. Space will not permit more than a sketch of the information services which have been built up by various foreign governments since the war and we must confine ourselves to a de-