A surge in trade with Latin America - includes related articles

Nation's Business, Feb, 1993 by Rosemary Werrett

And even Stern, formerly of Photo Marker and now managing director of international development for New Jersey-based Better Methods Alexander Holdings (BMA), a maker of specialty paper and products for the apparel industry, forecasts unlimited opportunities in Latin America "if you have the right product to sell."

Stern rates the region high in entrepreneurial talents as well as in hunger for the most modern equipment. Stern developed a fabriccolor and shade-matching instrument that sells for less than $5,000; it is being snapped up, he says, by textile firms in Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Mexico.

Stern's efforts to put BMA into the international market have resulted in a 10 percent--or approximately $5 million-- boost in the company's overall sales. Latin America still represents a small chunk of BMA's international business, but Stern forecasts its share will grow quickly because of the improving environment for doing business in the region.

Despite his frustrating and damaging encounter with Mexican trade barriers years ago, Stern brushes aside the idea that doing business in Latin America is overwhelmingly difficult these days. "Anyone who says it's too difficult doesn't know" about what is going on in the region now, he says, but he warns that to make any export effort successful, "a company must make a commitment."

In fact, with barriers falling and the trade climate flourishing in Latin America, Stern is but one among the many U.S. executives who now contend that the only real obstacles to lucrative sales in that region are those imposed by the potential exporters themselves.

Stern holds that for smaller companies, the greatest impediment to successful exporting is lack of an export mentality. He explains that it took two years at BMA to organize a staff that understood the meaning and flow of documents such as certificates of origin, which must be made out accurately and without erasures. Terms such as CAD (cash against documents) and CIA (cash in advance) amounted to a new lingo that had to be taught. Wire transfers and transfer agents were concepts that had to be learned as well.

Says another U.S. executive who has closed several million dollars worth of contracts for high-tech equipment in Argentina and Chile: "Making the sale was easy. What was difficult was getting our management to understand that they had to change some procedures. For example, to prepare our documents in Spanish." Moreover, he says, U.S. business people "have to get a job done when we say it will be done."

Veteran exporters say there are no shortcuts to preparing your company to succeed in Latin America. They all advise that you visit the country where you wish to do business and discuss prospects with U.S. embassy staff members, local chambers of commerce, and local business executives. They urge that you take time to understand the local business culture, which is much more dependent on personal contacts than usually is the case in the U.S.