International Marketing Environment - Essay Example

Surplus balance of payments can be maintained only when the total exports of goods and services exceed the total imports of goods and services. Exports bring foreign currency to a country and this in turn can be used for making payments to importers. Government in each and every nation support exporters by arranging extensive loans and subsidies whereas impose restrictions on importing such as tariffs, quotas and embargoes. Economic integration between nations encompasses certain measures that are designed to abolish discriminations between economic units belonging to different nations.

There are mainly five levels of economic integration, Free trade area, Customs union, Common market, Economic union and politic union. In free trade area, countries belonging to a specific trade bloc have an arrangement of free trade or less-restricted trade between them. Custom union is more advanced arrangement than free trade since it not only eliminated restrictions but also adopts uniform commercial policy between its nations. In a common market, there is free flow of labor and capital.

Economic union is more advanced to these as it achieves some degree of economic harmonization of national economic policies (Bento and Bento, 2009). Economic integration between countries defines the nature and degree of economic as well as social links between nations. For instance, free trade provides more flexible marketing opportunities for both the countries whereas custom union facilitates uniform economic policies between nations. When firms go global and market internationally, there are major concerns of economic and cultural aspects.

Each different nation has its own culture, social setting, languages and therefore marketers need to consider the language, culture and social system that they wish to market their goods and services in. The marketer requires extensive marketing research about customers’ general and specific