• National e-Commerce Extension Initiative
• Module Homepage
• General Overview
• Facilitation Tools
• Learning Lesson
• Introduction
• Phase One
• Phase Two
  • Introduction
  • Begin Research
  • Changing Worksheets
  • Researching International Markets
  • General Information
  • Location and Time Zone
  • Economic Growth and Stability
  • Economic Growth and Stability Cont.
  • Technology and Infrastructure
• Phase Three
• Phase Four
• Final Thoughts

Economic Growth and Stability

Consult the following sources for finding information about the economic and business environment of a prospective international market:

• The Economist Intelligence Unit "2008 E-readiness Report"

  http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=ibm_ereadiness&page=noads
  The ‘e-readiness’ report provides a good overview of the environment of a particular country especially as it relates to those factors that impact elements of global e-commerce. This report scores 70 countries in the following six categories to determine their e-readiness ranking: (1) connectivity and technology infrastructure; (2) business environment; (3) social and cultural environment; (4) legal environment; (5) government policy and vision; and (6) consumer and business adoption. Click on the portable document format (PDF) located toward the bottom of the page. The rankings are listed on page 6 of the document.
  
  

• Doing Business, The World Bank Group

  http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings
  You can find information about the relative ease or difficulty of doing business in various parts of the world. This site is affiliated with the World Bank and provides information about 181 countries by ranking them in terms of how conducive their environments are to conducting business.
  
  

• World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency

  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
  Where information about currencies and currency codes can be found.
  
  

Web site and all contents © Copyright Southern Rural Development Center 2009, All rights reserved. These materials were developed as part of the Southern Rural Development Center’s National e-Commerce Extension Initiative. They are based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Award No. 2005-45064-03212

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Southern Rural Development Center.