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Afrocenter Glossary of Business Terms | |
| 8(a) Business Development Program Context is: business term. A business development program created to help small disadvantaged businesses compete in the American economy and access the federal procurement market. | |
| ABA # Context is: infotech term. American Bankers Association number - often referred to as the "transit routing number", is the nine (9) digit electronic address of a financial institution. The ABA number is encoded in the MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) line of all checks, and is assigned to each financial institution and each branch office of that financial institution. | |
| ADA - Americans with Disabilities Act Context is: business term. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives federal civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications. More... | |
| AIPA Context is: patent term. American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 -- see MORE | |
| AIPLA Context is: business term. American Intellectual Property Law Association | |
| BINATIONAL PANEL Context is: trade term. A panel established under the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement to assist in the resolution of trade disputes. Subsequently incorporated into the North American Free Trade Agreement, review by the binational panel is the principal mechanism to settle disputes among or between the United States, Canada, and Mexico arising from antidumping duty, countervailing duty, and final injury determinations. Chapter 19 of the NAFTA proffers the binational panel review as an alternative to judicial review. To this end, in article 1904, the signatories have established rules of procedure, as well as an "extraordinary challenge procedure," to safeguard against any panel impropriety or gross error. In addition, article 1903 provides the opportunity for a party to request that any amendment to another party's antidumping or countervailing duty law be referred to a panel for a declaratory opinion on whether the amendment is consistent with the NAFTA. See also Bilateral Trade Agreement; Dispute Settlement; North American Free Trade Agreement; U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement; U.S.-Canada Trade Commission. | |
| BRETTON WOODS CONFERENCE Context is: trade term. A meeting of central bank economists and other government officials, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, that took place in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944. The conference was convened to consider alternative proposals put forward by British and American financial experts relating to international payments problems, the economic reconstruction needs of Europe upon the conclusion of World War II, and the need to ensure stable exchange rates and free convertibility of currencies. The compromise solution negotiated at Bretton Woods led to the establishment of an International Monetary Fund and an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank). The presumed need for an International Trade Organization was also informally considered at Bretton Woods. See also General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; International Monetary Fund; World Bank. | |
| BUSINESS CONCERN Context is: business term. A business concern eligible for assistance as a small business is a business entity organized for profit, with a place of business located in the United States, and which operates primarily within the United States or makes a significant contribution to the US economy through payment of taxes or use of American products, materials, or labor. | |
| BUY AMERICAN ACT Context is: trade term. U.S. legislation passed in 1933 that mandates preference for the purchase of domestically produced goods over foreign goods in U.S. government procurement. The president has the authority to waive the Buy American Act within the terms of a reciprocal agreement or otherwise in response to the provision of reciprocal treatment to U.S. producers. Under the 1979 GATT Government Procurement Code, the U.S.-Israel FTA, the U.S.-Canada FTA, and the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, the United States provides access to the government procurement of certain U.S. agencies for goods from the other parties to those agreements. Other "buy-national" legislative provisions exist separately from the Buy American Act requirements. See also Agreement on Government Procurement; Government Procurement Policies and Practices; U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement; U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. | |
| CAIP - Community Adjustment and Investment Program Context is: business term. The United States Community Adjustment and Investment Program was created to help communities that suffered job losses due to changing trade patterns with Mexico and Canada following the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The CAIP promotes economic implementation of the adjustment by increasing the availability and flow of credit and encourages business development and expansion in impacted areas. Through the CAIP, credit is available to businesses in eligible communities to create new, sustainable jobs or to preserve existing jobs. More... | |
| CARIBBEAN BASIN INITIATIVE (CBI) Context is: trade term. A broad program to promote economic development through private sector initiative in Central America and the Caribbean islands. The goal is to expand foreign and domestic investment in nontraditional sectors, diversifying CBI country economies and expanding their exports. The major elements of the program are duty-free entry to the United States in perpetuity for a wide-ranging group of products; U.S. economic assistance to the region; continuing self-help efforts to improve investment climate and trade; a deduction on U.S. taxes for companies that hold conventions in qualifying CBI countries to increase tourism; and U.S. government, state government, and private sector promotion program support from other trading partners and from multinational development institutions. See also ACP Countries; Agency for International Development; Bilateral Aid; Developing Countries; Economic Development; Enterprise for the Americas Initiative; Liberalization; Lomé Convention; Multilateral Aid; North-South Trade; Official Development Assistance; Overseas Private Investment Corporation; Reverse Preferences; Soft Loan; Special and Differential Treatment; Tariff Quota. | |
| COMMON EXTERNAL TARIFF (CET or sometimes CXT) Context is: trade term. A tariff rate uniformly applied by a common market or customs union, such as the European Community, to imports from countries outside the union. For example, the European internal market is based on the principle of a free internal trade area with a common external tariff [sometimes referred to in French as the Tariff Extérieur Commun (TEC)] applied to products imported from non-member countries. "Free trade areas" do not necessarily have common external tariffs, and free trade agreements seldom have common external tariffs. See also Customs; Customs Area; Customs Union; European Community; Free Trade Area Agreement; Free Trade Area of the Americas; Free Zone; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Kyoto Convention; MERCOSUR; North American Free Trade Agreement; Tariff; Tariff Schedules; Trade Diversion; U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. | |
| COMMUNITY ADJUSTMENT AND INVESTMENT PROGRAM (CAIP) Context is: business term. The United States Community Adjustment and Investment Program was created to help communities that suffered job losses due to changing trade patterns with Mexico and Canada following the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The CAIP promotes economic implementation of the adjustment by increasing the availability and flow of credit and encourages business development and expansion in impacted areas. Through the CAIP, credit is available to businesses in eligible communities to create new, sustainable jobs or to preserve existing jobs. The CAIP works with the SBA in both their 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program and 504 Program to reduce borrower costs and increase the availability of these proven business assistance programs. More... | |
| COUNTERTRADE (CT) Context is: trade term. Arrangements under which the sale of goods or services from one country to another are linked to sales in the opposite direction. Countertrade arrangements frequently characterize East-West trade. Such transactions include: Counterpurchase contracts that stipulate that the vendor must purchase goods from the importer equivalent in value to a specified percentage of the value of the exported goods; Reverse countertrade contracts that require an importer (a U.S. buyer of machine tools from Eastern Europe, for example) to export goods equivalent in value to a specified percentage of the value of the imported goods an obligation that can be sold to an exporter in a third country; Buy-back (or compensation) arrangements through which a company selling equipment, licenses, technology, or a turnkey plant agrees to accept in full or partial payment products manufactured with such equipment, licenses, technology, or plant; Clearing agreements between two countries that agree to purchase specific amounts of each other's products over a certain period of time, using a designated "clearing currency" in the transactions; Switch arrangements that permit the sale of unpaid balances in a clearing account to be sold to a third party, usually at a discount, that may be used for producing goods in the country holding the balance; Swap schemes through which products from different locations are traded to save transportation costs (for example, Russian oil may be swapped for oil from a Latin American producer, so the Russian oil is shipped to a country in South Asia, while the Latin American oil is shipped to Cuba); Barter arrangements through which two parties directly exchange goods deemed to be of approximately equivalent value without any flow of money taking place. See also Barter; East-West Trade; Nonmarket Economy; Offset Requirements; Tied Loan; Turnkey Contract. | |
| CUSTOMS AREA Context is: trade term. A geographic area, usually but not necessarily identical to one or several contiguous national political jurisdictions, applying a particular tariff schedule on goods entering or leaving the area. See also Common External Tariff; Customs; Customs Union; European Community; Free Trade Area Agreement; Free Trade Area of the Americas; Free Zone; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Kyoto Convention; MERCOSUR; North American Free Trade Agreement; Tariff; Tariff Schedules; Trade Diversion; U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. | |
| CUSTOMS UNION Context is: trade term. A group of nations that have eliminated tariffs and sometimes other barriers that impede trade with each other, while maintaining a common external tariff on goods imported from outside the union. GATT Article XXIV defines the meaning of a customs union in GATT and the application of other GATT provisions to customs unions. See also Common External Tariff; Customs Area; Customs; European Community; Free Trade Area Agreement; Free Trade Area of the Americas; Free Zone; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Kyoto Convention; MERCOSUR; North American Free Trade Agreement; Tariff; Tariff Schedules; Trade Diversion; U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement; Welfare. | |
| DECLARATION OF MADRID Context is: trade term. See Inter-American Development Bank. | |
| DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Context is: trade term. A broad range of countries that generally lack a high degree of industrialization, infrastructure, and other capital investment, sophisticated technology, widespread literacy, and advanced living standards among their populations as a whole. The developing countries are sometimes collectively designated as the Third World and sometimes as the South, because a large number of them are in the Southern Hemisphere. All of the countries of Africa (except South Africa), Asia (except Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), and Oceania (except Australia, Japan, and New Zealand), Latin America, and the Middle East are generally considered developing countries, as are a few European countries (Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Poland, and Hungary, for example). Some experts have identified four subcategories of developing countries as having different economic needs and interests: A few relatively wealthy OPEC countries sometimes referred to as oil-exporting developing countries share a particular interest in a financially sound international economy and open capital markets. Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) have a growing stake in an open international trading system. A number of middle-income countries principally commodity exporters have shown a particular interest in commodity stabilization schemes. Some 48 very poor countries (least developed countries) are predominantly agricultural, have sharply limited development prospects during the near future, and tend to be heavily dependent on official development assistance. See also ACP Countries; Additionality; Agency for International Development; Bilateral Aid; Caribbean Basin Initiative; Development Assistance Committee; Economic Cooperation Among Developing Countries; Economic Development; Enabling Clause; Enterprise for the Americas Initiative; Framework Agreement; Generalized System of Preferences; Global System of Trade Preferences; Graduation; Group of 77; International Finance Corporation; International Trade Center UNCTAD/WTO; Least Developed Countries; Lomé Convention; Multilateral Aid; Newly Industrializing Countries; Non-Aligned Movement; North-South Trade; Official Development Assistance; Paris Club; Part IV of the GATT; Public Law 480; Reciprocity; Reverse Preferences; Soft Loan; South-South Trade; Special and Differential Treatment; Structural Change; Substantial New Program of Action; Textiles; Transfer Payments; Tropical Products; United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; United Nations Development Program. | |
| DIRECT INVESTMENT Context is: trade term. Defined in the International Monetary Fund's Balance of Payments Manual as "investment that is made to acquire a lasting interest in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor, the investor's purpose being to have an effective voice in the management of the enterprise." The United States defines direct investment in different ways depending on the legal and factual context in which the term is used. For example, the International Investment and Trade in Services Survey Act defines direct investment as "the ownership or control, directly or indirectly, by one person of 10 percent or more of the voting securities of an incorporated business enterprise or an equivalent interest in an unincorporated business enterprise." Other statutes and international agreements to which the United States is a party use different definitions. See also Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures; Balance of Payments; Bilateral Investment Treaty; Capital Account; Foreign Investment; Framework Agreement; Industrial Policy; International Monetary Fund; Investment Performance Requirements; Multilateral Agreement on Investment; Multilateral Investment Fund; Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency; National Treatment; North American Development Bank; Overseas Private Investment Corporation; Performance Requirements; Right of Establishment; Trade-Related Investment Measures. | |
| DISABLED Context is: business term. The "disabled" are individuals whose physical or mental abilities prevent them from fully participating in normal activities and/or functions of living. The intended beneficiaries of The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). ADA gives federal civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications. More... | |
| DISPUTE SETTLEMENT Context is: trade term. In the trade context, dispute settlement usually refers to procedures for consultation, conciliation, and possible referral to a neutral third party of a dispute between parties to a trade agreement. GATT articles XXII and XXIII contain provisions for consultations and for the GATT contracting parties to make recommendations and rulings in particular disputes. Under the auspices of the WTO, the Understanding on Rules and Procedures on Governing the Settlement of Disputes was concluded to strengthen the procedures established by the GATT. In addition, the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement contain detailed procedures for the settlement of disputes arising under those agreements. See also Arbitration; Article 23 (GATT Article XXIII); Binational Panel; Codes of Conduct; Compensation; Consultations; Framework Agreement; Government Procurement Policies and Practices; North American Free Trade Agreement; Panel of Experts; Tokyo Round; Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes; Uruguay Round; U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement; World Trade Organization. | |
| EAI Context is: trade term. See Enterprise for the Americas Initiative. | |
| EAST-WEST TRADE Context is: trade term. Referred to trade between the former Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe (East) on the one hand, and the developed market economy countries of Western Europe, North America, and Japan on the other (West). See also Countertrade; Nonmarket Economy. | |
| ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Context is: trade term. The process of growth in total and per capita income, especially in developing countries, accompanied by increased infrastructure, more industrial activity, improved agricultural practices, migration of labor from rural to urban industrial areas, rising literacy, broadened employment opportunities, and gradually diminishing reliance on official development assistance. See also ACP Countries; Agency for International Development; Bilateral Aid; Caribbean Basin Initiative; Developed Countries; Developing Countries; Development Assistance Committee; Domestic System of Production; Economic Cooperation Among Developing Countries; Enabling Clause; Enterprise for the Americas Initiative; Framework Agreement; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Generalized System of Preferences; Global System of Trade Preferences; Graduation; Group B; Group D; Group of 7; Group of 77; Industrial Revolution; Infrastructure; Inter-American Development Bank; International Trade Center UNCTAD/WTO; Least Developed Countries; Lomé Convention; Market Economy; Newly Industrializing Countries; North-South Trade; Official Development Assistance; Paris Club; Part IV of the GATT; Production; Public Law 480; Reciprocity; Reverse Preferences; Soft Loan; South-South Trade; Special and Differential Treatment; Structural Change; Substantial New Program of Action; Textiles; Transfer Payments; Tropical Products; United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; United Nations Development Program; Williamsburg Summit; World Bank. | |
| ELECTRONIC FEDERAL TAX PAYMENT SYSTEM (EFTPS) Context is: business term. Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, provides an electronic system for paying federal taxes. The IRS replaced the current system of processing taxes in compliance with North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) mandates, and now expedite the availability of funds and investment decision making information to the U.S. Treasury while providing flexible payment options to the business taxpayer More... | |
