Importing: Positive and Negative Sides

Importing is the process of bringing goods from one country for the purpose of reselling them in another country. Imports are foreign goods and services bought by residents of a country. Any product that isn’t made in the local lands is automatically considered an import product. The residents that buy the imported product may be customers, businessman, or even the government itself.

It’s not important what kind of product the import is as long as the product is made outside the country it’s an import. Usually these products have clear cut advantage when it is imported whether it’s having a higher and better quality or having a significantly lower cost than local made products.

The Philippines top import partners are Japan, China, United States, Korea, and Thailand. Importing raw materials and goods is one of the paths of increasing the profit margins. There are number of benefits in importing the goods, such as high quality, low prices, and benefits related to the international trade. An importer can have the comparative advantage which means lower prices. The importer can also have the much cheaper products from the foreign market due to low labor cost, low taxes etc. in terms of quality, the importer can have the higher quality goods and produce the finished goods with high quality and extend the business profit margins. In some countries, government provides the support to the importer for developing the trade relations. This support gives business tax discounts which leads to more efficiency on the business profit.

Government provides the information of the manufacturers and producers in the foreign country so that the importer can purchase the high quality and low price goods. Also due to the government involvement reduces the transaction risk. An importer can access to the regionally exclusive resources and cheap labor for producing the goods. These resources are required in the manufacturing process that have specialized skills and can be sound in certain countries.

Some of the goods could lead the erosion of the domestic markets and national economies specifically when there is trade deficit occurrence i.e. the import is higher than the export. Some of the goods like cars; appliances lead a higher level of domestic automobile and electronic markets and also loss of jobs in the respective markets. Domestic industries can also be crippled due to the import of the countries where the wages are low and the domestic industries are unable to compete since they cannot lower down their prices of goods than the cost of goods.