Profile the people of Belgium: What languages do they speak? What is their average educational level? What is their life expectancy? How fast is the population growing? Success in international business often depends on a firm obtaining information about foreign markets so that it can make exporting, importing, and investment decisions. Among the most useful sources are the following:

Survey of Current Business, published monthly by the U.S.

Department of Commerce, is a basic source of statistical data on the U.S. economy. It provides detailed analyses of international trade and investment activities affecting the United States.

The World Factbook provides basic geographic, ethnic, religious, political, and economic information on all countries. It is put out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and is particularly useful because it includes data about small, obscure, and politically controversial areas. For example, if you were an executive for Forum Energy PLC, a British company that was granted rights by the Philippine’s government to hunt for oil and gas around the Spratly Islands, The World Factbook is one of the few sources in which you could learn that the islands, many of which are under water at high tide, have no permanent population yet are claimed and garrisoned by five different countries—China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Armed with this information, you would realize that Forum’s explorations would be extremely sensitive and possibly the target of political conflict.