International Trade-Methodology II

In following with previous papers on international trade technology, this paper will focus on the issues related to bulk trade of commodities and exchanges such as the Baltic Exchange for contract bidding of freight carriage. Ocean is by volume the largest mover of commodities and finished goods around the world in dry, liquid or containerized cargo. Navigable rivers as well as intra-costal waterways serve as the feeder means to major ports that serve the continental trade across oceans also known as blue waters such as the Mississippi river which runs through the heartland of grain production to ports in the Gulf of Mexico for export. Other important assets to the waterborne connections are the canals and the straits that become the limiting factors to the size of ships needing to get thru either because water depth or passage girth. A good example of this is the intra-coastal canal system that runs around the fan that forms the US Gulf of Mexico except Florida, and the eastern seaboard.