Karmesh Patel first became interested in international trade during childhood. His interest was twofold, as he was fascinated by trade’s importance to both the global economy and international development.

“Growing up, I was always passionate to learn about importing and exporting and how the world economy relies on international trade. I also strongly believe that before the rapid development of technology that we see today, it was the international movement of goods and people that helped spread international culture and language. When you look into history, many civilizations were developed near oceans and international borders, since they were able to capitalize on transportation of goods and people.”

To pursue this interest as a career path, he earned his Bachelors of Commerce from Ryerson University, with a specialization in global management studies. During his studies, he worked on projects that gave him his first experience of what exporting companies have to deal with on a daily basis, and won a Global Citizen award from the school for his accomplishments both in the classroom and the community. After finishing his degree, he then also earned a post-graduate certificate in international development from Humber College.

Moving halfway around the world to pursue his career goals

Once he completed his studies, Karmesh wanted to improve his knowledge of international business and cultures, and decided the best way to do so would be to gain international experience. To do so, he accepted a position as Program Manager with the TATU Project, based on Moshi, Tanzania.

The organization’s focus is sustainable development in rural communities in northern Tanzania. His responsibilities mainly involved managing project finances, social business projects and the transport of goods to the rural communities he worked with. The final of these responsibilities led to one of the most memorable stories of his career to date.

“One of the major bridges we crossed on a regular basis was under construction and we were faced with a big challenge, because we needed to transport bulk goods to the community. Given that we were not provided with a concrete time frame for when the bridge would be repaired, and that we couldn’t purchase too much food in bulk, because of spoilage, we had to make some critical decisions.”

“Luckily, during the construction of the main bridge, the local administrative government built a small temporary bridge for the purpose of walking or driving via motorcycle only. When we spoke to local officials about our dilemma, local youth overheard and offered to help transport bulk bags of goods via motorcycle, since the overall goal was to help keep the local community and its businesses operating. Due to our bridge dilemma, we decided to work with the local youth to transport goods to our community stakeholders.”

“I really like this story because it shows you how community support and collaboration and help overcome any obstacle.”

Learning online at his own pace to further his career in international trade

Still passionate about international trade, he began taking the FITTskills online courses to continue learning about the industry, earn his FITT Diploma and expand his career options.

“I had a wonderful experience taking the FITTskills courses. The FITTskills courses all provided highly detailed information and really helped me further understand each area of international trade. They are perfect for anyone who is interested in gaining a broad-spectrum perspective about international trade and business. I found the material in the Global Value Chain and International Sales and Marketing courses really helped me excel in my Program Manager role with the TATU Project.”

His favourite course, International Market Entry Strategies, was also helpful for his current work and in helping him plan to make a career dream come true.

“I found learning about the research and analysis required to choose the most advantageous market entry strategy to be very fascinating. This course demonstrated the reality of what international businesses have to go through to be prepared for a new business venture.”

“Another key reason why this was my favourite course is that it has always been my goal to be part of a foreign direct investment team/organization implementing a greenfield investment in a foreign market. This course provided detailed information and helped me gain knowledge on how I can make this dream come true one day.”

Joining the Livingston team and the CITP community

Early in 2018, shortly before earning his FITT Diploma, Karmesh began his current job as a Cross Border Agent with Livingston International, one of North America’s biggest customs broker and freight forwarding companies. His responsibilities include processing electronic manifests, resolving shipment issues with CBSA (Canadian Border Services Agency) and CPB (U.S. Customs Border Protection), and ensuring shipments are in compliance with all relevant rules and regulations.

He says his role has helped him develop a better understanding of North America’s international trade traffic. His FITTskills training has also been helpful in settling into the role.

“I found that the Feasibility of International Trade course really helped me, as the course provide in-depth knowledge of creating an export plan and clearly explained import/export procedures.”

Wanting to prove himself to his clients and employer, Karmesh also successfully applied for the CITP®|FIBP® designation. He is optimistic it will help him stand out from the crowd, as well as learn from and connect with others.

“I chose to apply for the CITP designation because I wanted to join the CITP community, meet fellow designation holders and learn from some of the industry’s elite. As a young international trade professional, the designation also provides me with a further level of credibility for my employers and clients. I foresee my CITP designation playing a major role in assuring employers and clients of my credibility in international trade and business.”

With the credibility the CITP designation provides, I know I am one step closer of achieving my long term goal to implement a greenfield investment in a foreign market. I also foresee the CITP designation helping me start my own international business to help small agriculture business owners in developing countries.

The post Karmesh Patel, CITP|FIBP – Cross Border Agent appeared first on Trade Ready.

Trade has become the target of much negative, inflated and even hysterical commentary in several parts of the world. This goes beyond the core constituency of anti-traders, many of whom are thoughtful commentators pointing out serious, dangerous and fundamentally wrong elements of the current global model of cross-border commerce. Others, well, they can stand as an example of free, if not particularly well informed, speech.

Let’s acknowledge that trade has some fundamental flaws. Sometimes it involves terrible life-threatening activities related to the trade in rare earth minerals, diamonds and precious metals. At times it can facilitate unconscionable injustice related to the distribution of wealth across global supply chains, from small producers at one end to global multinationals midstream, and wealthy consumer clients at the other end.

This is not a political statement, nor a comment on the darker side of market economics: it is simply the reality.

Anti-trade activities and anti-globalization advocates focus on these areas. They have clearly gotten to the core of an emerging issue among populations that feel (and are) disenfranchised. These members of the human family have not experienced anything close to proportional benefits from the growth of trade or the expansion of globalization. In fact, rather than “globalization” what we should more accurately call it is “internationalization”, since we are still far from globalized in most areas of endeavour.

If trade is indeed so terrible, why do we engage in it?

Let’s not get into the classical economics discussion about comparative and absolute advantage, or the related example of countries producing and trading in “guns and butter”. We’ll leave that for another time.

Can we agree that humanity has probably engaged in trade since the dawn of our collective existence, and that on an individual level, most of us have done some kind of trading at some stage?

I was never one to trade lunches at school, but there was something innately interesting about trading in hockey cards, stamps or other collectibles. I go back to the peak days of the Canada vs. Russia rivalry and of the Montreal Canadiens’ dynasty years, Cournoyer, Lafleur, the Mahovlich brothers and Larry “The Big Bird” Robinson and spent hours poring over stamp collections and negotiating with long-gone fervour to acquire a particularly interesting addition to either the card or the stamp collection.

Were these the seeds of an eventual career in trade? That might be a stretch, but going from my hockey card trading days to reading a memorable book called “Making Global Deals” by Jaswald Salacuse, it seems, was natural and in perfect alignment.

Anti-globalization sentiments hit home

I’ve been observing, with a combination of reactions I dare not describe, developments over the last few months in Europe, parts of Asia, the United States and elsewhere. This has led me to conclude that anti-globalization and anti-trade commentators have managed to do something exceedingly well that those of us on the other side of the debate have done miserably poorly, and that is to deliver their message with a focus on issues that grab you by the gut, or the heart, or some combination of the two.

These messages hit home so often because they are grounded in realities, some that are in absolute need of description, debate and deliberation. Realities such as the adverse impact of trade on the environment, natural resources, indigenous populations, child labour, animal cruelty, illicit trade in endangered species and a whole range of similar matters, even ‘trade’ in pharmaceuticals, provided to developing markets at costs that are impossible to defend on human terms.

Arguing in favour of trade based on statistics, objective measures of economic value-creation, increases in global wealth, or other similarly dispassionate foundations simply does not work.

These intellectually grounded, academically robust arguments do not bring to life the positive contributions of international commerce. For instance, the reality that trade contributes to international security and safety, that the engagement of developing economies in trade very literally feeds families, saves lives and raises the quality of life for tens of millions of people if not more, across the planet.

Trade is not just about commerce at all costs, it is not just about cost-cutting, or about finding new markets to sell into at attractive margins. Trade is also an engine of growth, a contributor to international development, and an important element of a growing effort to put financial and economic inclusiveness at the heart of international policy priorities.

Making connections with the very real benefits of trade

Many of the very issues raised by anti-trade activists and anti-globalization commentators are being improved, or at least mitigated, as a direct result of international engagement and trade.

Observe health and safety standards being applied in emerging markets, and anti-corruption measures positively impacting the full spectrum of economies from OECD economies to frontier markets because of trade deals and initiatives around corporate social responsibility and good global citizenship. We are also seeing an increase in responsibility from corporations for the actions and standards of their suppliers. All of the  point to improvements that cross borders, with benefits that reach around the globe.

These examples illustrate a few of the ways in which international commerce and engagement can be a channel for transmitting economic value, but also a channel for increasing safety and security, enhancing quality of life and advancing international development and reducing poverty.

Trade and international engagement are credited with pulling one billion people out of poverty.

Yes, the definition of poverty can be debated, and one can argue that more could have been done sooner – no question. However, it can be highly encouraging to observe very real signs of progress in the way nations, companies and people engage together.

Changing the way we do business globally

It is a source of energy and optimism to see that issues once seen to be at the fringes of priority are being brought sharply into focus, and are becoming the subject of serious dialogue, substantive policy and commercially compelling efforts to measure success through more than a set of financial statements.

The advent of the Internet, including the significant use of online trade platforms like eBay, Alibaba and the soon-to-be-developed e-World Trade Platform, have done a great deal to advance international engagement by small, even home-based businesses. These platforms have enabled the commercialization of local arts and crafts to an international market, and have enabled individuals, small businesses and communities to benefit from access to financial resources in order to pursue opportunities in international markets.

The global reach that can be experienced from one’s office or living room opens up unique culinary or cultural experiences, tremendous access to world-class education platforms – all enabling a new level of international engagement – and an interest in accessing and experiencing “things international” to a degree that was once impossible to imagine.

Trade, like most human activity, is imperfect. Happily, we have been making good progress in making trade and international engagement about much more than profitable commerce.

Social enterprise, good citizenship, the importance of inclusiveness are all becoming mainstream, and will contribute to addressing many of the issues we know need to be fixed in the global architecture for international trade, investment and engagement.

I (OK, we!) need to go back and think more about how to tell the story of trade and international engagement (and eventually, of finance) that will grab people by the gut or by the heart.

For now, I’ve got to go contribute to some planning for the 2017 edition of the World Trade Symposium to take place in London next June. This marks the second year of an event for which I am honoured to serve as a Board Member. We think a great deal about trade, finance, technology and inclusiveness, and ways we can put these things together to improve the lives of people around the world.  It is through such events and initiatives, and the important work for FITT and our community of members and CITP®|FIBP® designation holders, that the story of trade will ultimately be told in a balanced, thoughtful manner, to the continued benefit of many nations, businesses, families and individuals – even some of its most vocal opponents!

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