GLOBUS & NTDB

What are the Major Areas?

The GLOBUS & NTDB section has ten major sections:
* Trade News:  This section contains information about major updates.
* Today's Globus Business Opportunity Leads:  Here are the current day's business opportunities.  These include overseas purchasing requests (Trade Opportunity Program [TOPs], International Marketing Insight [IMI], and Agricultural [Ag] trade leads) as well as domestic US government procurements (Commerce Business Daily [CBD],  Defense Logistics Agency [DLA]), and the State and Local Government leads.  
* Current Exchange Rates:  These are the Federal Reserve Board's Noon and 10am postings of exchange rates as well as time series data.
* Current and Historical Trade Leads:  These are the business opportunity leads seen before (TOPs, Ag, CBD, and DLA leads--IMI leads are in the next section) as well as trade leads posted through the United Nations' ETO system and state and local government procurement leads.  Instead of being just today's leads, these leads go back three months or more.
Note:  Historical IMI leads are found in the "Market and Country Research" sub-section instead of being here.

Note:  If you are a foreign company, go to your US embassy's commercial attache to get your purchase requests added to our TOPS reporting service.  We're sorry but there's no equivalent Commerce service for US companies seeking to buy or sell anything.  Nor does the US government provide support for foreign companies seeking to sell things.

Note:  Companies can submit trade leads of any kind through the United Nations' Electronic Trading Opportunities (ETO) system.  This can be done on their Web site at http://www.unicc.org/untpdc  Leads posted on that site will appear on the STAT-USA/Internet site.

* Market and Country Research:  Here's where International Marketing Insight (IMI) and Industry Sector Analysis (ISA) reports for yesterday or before can be found.  Additionally, this section has other components of the International Trade Administration and USDA's market research items, such as the Best Market Reports, Foreign Agricultural Market Reports AGWORLD), Pacific Rim Reports, and the Multilateral Development Bank reports.  This section also includes the very popular Country Commercial Guides.
Note:  After three months, IMI reports are combined with Industry Sector Analysis (ISA) reports in one area called "Market Research Reports".  So if you want IMI's that are more than 3 months old, search through the menu pick for "Market Research Reports Historical Archives".
* International Trade Statistics:  Here are US import and export merchandise trade statistics.  Data are presented on a 10-digit basis by country.  For US exports, we have at least five years of trade data plus current year-to-date data.  For US imports, we have at least three years of data.
* Current Press Releases:  This section contains press releases related to trade.
* Contacts:  This contains a variety of company names within and outside the United States as well as trade resource centers within the US.
Note:  Commerce has not updated the Commercial Service International Contacts (CSIC) data base since August 1996.  We hope that it will come back online at some point.

* Note:  The Export Yellow Pages has been replaced by the US Exporters' Yellow Pages.  Look for it to appear shortly on our site.
* Other:  This section contains a few items including "Search the Entire National Trade Data Bank" which links to the International Trade Library (see below).
* International Trade Library:  This contains everything from the National Trade Data Bank on CD-ROM in a full-text searchable environment.
Note:  The NTDB data base is updated once per month.  It is a full-text searchable version of the current CD-ROM only; it does not have any archival information removed from the CD-ROM.
Note:  The State of Origin of Exports (MISER) data from the CD-ROM are not available on the STAT-USA/Internet site.  Other than that, everything from the CD-ROM is available on the Internet site.

Trade Leads

TOPS:  Trade Opportunity Program leads:  These trade leads are from foreign companies and governments.  They've contacted a US embassy abroad to say they want to buy a product like widgets with such-and-such specifications.  They're requesting suppliers to contact them.
* Today's leads:  Available under "Today's Global Business Opportunity Leads" | "3:00pm -- Trade Opportunity Program (TOP) Leads" after 3pm Eastern time. 
* Leads for last one-to-three months:  Available under "Current and Historical Trade Leads" | "Trade Opportunity Program Leads (1 month)".
* Leads for last two years:  Available under "Current and Historical Trade Leads" | "Trade Opportunity Program Leads (2 years)".   Note:  The two-year TOPS data base is only updated once a month.  As such, recent leads will not show up in it.  Pick the "Trade Opportunity Program Leads (3 months)" option instead if you want to make sure the have the most current leads.
IMI:  International Marketing Insight Reports:  These include a number of "hot" topics including procurement activities by some major world banks.  These leads are created by Commercial officers in US embassies overseas.
* Today's leads:  Available under "Today's Global Business Opportunity Leads" | "3:00pm -- International Marketing Insight (IMI) Reports" after 3pm Eastern time.
* Leads for last three months:  Available under "Market and Country Research" | "International Marketing Insight (IMI) Reports (3 months)".
* Leads for last two years:  Available under "Market and Country Research" | "Market Research Reports Historical Archive".   Note:  As with the two-year TOPS data base, the historical archive of Market Research Reports  is only updated once a month.  As such, recent leads will not show up in it.  Pick the "International Marketing Insight (IMI) Reports (3 months)" option instead if you want to make sure the have the most current leads.
Agricultural Trade Leads:  These leads come from the US Department of Agriculture.  They are usually posted four (out of five) days a week.
* Today's leads:  Available under "Today's Global Business Opportunity Leads" | "5:00pm Agricultural Trade Leads" after 5pm Eastern time.  Do not search for them before 5pm each day as the file will not be there.  If they are not there after 5pm, it may be one of the days they are not posted.
* Leads for last three months:  Available under "Current and Historical Trade Leads" | "Agricultural Trade Leads (3 months)".
CBD: Commerce Business Daily Leads:  Every US civilian government procurement activity of $25,000 or more must be advertised through the Commerce Business Daily.  Frequently, these procurements have already been awarded (and, in fact, will show up as such) but, being major procurements, the primary contractor may need sub-contractors.  CBD leads are identified by service detail codes.
* Today's leads:  Available under "Today's Global Business Opportunity Leads" | "9:00am Commerce Business Daily  Leads" after 9am Eastern time.
* Leads for last three months:  Available under "Current and Historical Trade Leads" | "Commerce Business Daily Leads (3 months)".
DLA:  Defense Logistics Agency Leads:  These procurement leads are put out by the Department of Defense and are roughly equivalent to the CBD leads.  Recognize that the Defense Department has exacting standards for parts in order to insure interchangability of parts and that the production standards for DOD are considerably tighter than for most products.  As such, your company is going to have to be minutely acquainted to DOD rules, standards, and classification systems before attempting to compete on one of these activities.
* Today's leads:  Available under "Today's Global Business Opportunity Leads" | "Defense Logistics Agency Leads" after 9am Eastern time.
* Leads for last three months:  Available under "Current and Historical Trade Leads" | "Defense Logistics Agency Leads (3 months)".

Merchandise Trade Data (Imports & Exports)

The United States records all merchandise trade imports and exports by 10-digit Harmonized System (HS) number.  The HS system is common across countries (and for both imports and exports) on a 6-digit basis and the US has added additional digits for statistical purposes.  For a number of reasons, the import codes and then export codes do not always agree with each other and there are, in fact, about 8,000 10-digit export commodity codes and 14,000 10-digit import commodity codes.

For each of these 10-digit items, the US Government collects import and export statistics by dollar value.  About 85 percent of the commodities also have quantity figures.

STAT-USA has this value and quantity (where available) information for all 10-digit commodities and all countries that the US reports trade with.  This shows up in the "International Trade Statistics" section of the GLOBUS & NTDB page.  For US exports, STAT-USA has five full years of annual data and two year-to-date periods (for example, a total for January to June 1998 and then for January to June 1997).  For US imports, STAT-USA has three full years of annual data and two year-to-date periods.

To find trade for a commodity, go to the "International Trade Statistics" section and select either "U.S. Exports by Commodity" or "U.S. Imports by Commodity".  Note that there are several different data formats in which the trade data are available and the section itself tells you what time period the data are through in each format.

Once you select either "U.S. Exports by Commodity" or "U.S. Imports by Commodity", you'll get a list of commodities.  You can scroll through the page or use the [Previous Page] and [Next Page] links to get more pages of items. If you click on the "[Search]" link, you will be prompted for string to search for.  You can enter any of the following:

A ten-digit HS commodity number:  In our case, we're searching for hang gliders which has a 10-digit Harmonized System number 8801100030 so we would put "8801100030" (without the quotes).  
Note:  Do not include any periods in the commodity number.
Note:  Some publications show an eleventh digit (or "check digit").  Only enter the first ten characters of the code.
A six-digit HS commodity number:  These should be entered as the number with the letters "HS" in front.  In our case, you would enter "HS880110" (without the quotes).
Note:  All trade data are reported on a ten-digit, not six-digit, basis.  As such, you may get more than one commodity number back when you enter a search like this.  If you want the six-digit total, you'll have to download all of the commodities shown and aggregate them on your own.
The commodity description:  Typically, you'd enter only a partial description, typically one word (like "polyurethane").  If you have more than one word to enter, include "and" between the words.  In our case, you would enter "hang and glider" (without the quotes).
Note:  Commodity descriptions are often abbreviated.  If you don't find what you want, try different words or drop one of the words you searched for.
The SIC number:  If you know the four-digit Standard Industrial Classification number (a US-government construct), you can enter that.  You need to include the letters "SIC" immediately in front of the four digits.  In our case, you would enter "SIC3721" (without the quotes).  Since you are limited to the number of "hits" that will be returned for any search, you may not be able to see all of the ten-digit HS commodities that are valid for that given SIC number.

Once you do a search, you will typically get a screen back with multiple hits.

There will usually be some links to descriptive lists which show up in the listing.  For example, above you'll see "HS 2-, 4-, and 6-digit descriptions", "Cross-classification tables", and "SITC descriptions".  You can download these if you want.  They contain a list of all commodities which are valid in the merchandise trade section.  

The "Cross-classification tables" file is a huge (700,000 bytes or so) file which contains all 10-digit Harmonized System numbers, their corresponding commodity descriptions, SIC, SITC, and end-use classification codes.

Presuming you want the export and import values instead of just the commodity listings, you will want to click on one of the items shown that starts with the ten-digit Harmonized System number.  There are three formats available, and each is noted in the description:

* ASCII-delimited File:  This version has the country names in quotes and the data with numbers around it.  This looks like the following:

This data is useful for loading into a data base or spreadsheet.  
Note:  Notice the descriptive information shown in the file.  The 2nd, 4th, sets of data are footnotes.  In the case of zero data values, there may be an associated footnote which will be "1" if the value rounds to zero instead of being a valid zero value.  For other data values, the footnote is irrelevant.  In most cases, you'll want to ignore these columns entirely.  For the example shown above, the "World" line has 807 (thousand) as the value of trade in Jan-Nov 1998, the "0" footnote should be ignore, and then it's 815 (thousand) as the value of trade in Jan-Nov 1997.

* Wk1 Worksheet:  This file type can be directly loaded into a worksheet.  If you have file associations arranged correctly, your spreadsheet program (Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, whatever) will come up automatically when you click on this file type.  Otherwise, you can try the "Run this program from its current location" prompt which may come up.  Finally, if all else fails, you'll have to save the file to you disk drive and load it from your spreadsheet program.

* Text Format:  This is the version that you can view on-screen. It is the only one of the three versions not labeled.
* Note:  Your browser may incorrectly cut and paste these data into applications.  You may have to cut and paste them into Notepad first and then cut and paste from there.
* Note:  You will not be able to print this page without some of the columns of numbers being cut off.  You may have to go into Page Setup and select landscape instead of portrait.  Under Internet Explorer, you can go into View | Fonts... and pick the Smallest option.  That may help

International Trade Library

If you want to do broad searches across the GLOBUS & NTDB page, there are two options available:

International Trade Library:  This is a search option which allows you to search for anything in the GLOBUS & NTDB page which has not already been itemized.  The National Trade Data Bank CD-ROM consists of hundreds of "information programs" and only the most popular ones are made directly available to you on the main page.  For example, if you want to access the Army Area Handbooks, these are in the International Trade Library.  
Search the entire NTDB:  This search option searches across all reports in the GLOBUS & NTDB section.  Market Research Reports, Trade Opportunity Program leads, etc are all in this section.  This option is described in a later section.

Note that the International Trade Library is based on the contents of the National Trade Data Bank CD-ROM product.  This CD-ROM is updated monthly.  As such, the items in the International Trade Library are only updated once a month.  

There are two ways to get to the International Trade Library.  One way is to go all the way to the bottom of the GLOBUS & NTDB page and select "The International Trade Library" at the bottom. You can also get here by clicking on the "[Trade Library]" link at the top of the GLOBUS & NTDB page.

The screen will present a list of "information programs" in the National Trade Data Bank.  There will be little blue triangles next to each item.  Click on one of the triangles and the information program next to it "expands", listing the document titles within that program. Clicking on the title of the document will bring up that report.

You can also search the library by clicking the "[Search]" link.  Searching is done the same way it's done elsewhere on the STAT-USA/Internet site.  If you have multiple words to search (such as "china textiles"), make you include the word "and" between each word (e.g. "china and textiles").

Searching the Entire NTDB

If you select the "Search Entire NTDB" option from the main GLOBUS & NTDB screen, you will get a search screen that looks similar to that shown for the International Trade Library. The difference is that you're searching across everything in the GLOBUS & NTDB section, not just the items that weren't referenced elsewhere.