Those 214 agreements are not all with major developed countries. In fact, more and more of them govern trade among developing countries (so-called south-south FTAs). The WTO has a great database of these agreements that can be fun to play with. Who knew, for instance, that Peru has an FTA with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Norway? Or that there is a Pan-Arab Free Trade Area (PAFTA) covering much of North Africa and the Middle East?

Hmm...what can we sell in India?

The Malaysia-Chile FTA is brand new and involves two of the parties in the negotiations for a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Chile’s 2010 exports to Malaysia were only about US$200 million so it will be a while before the impact of this agreement is seen. Still, Chile anticipates that the FTA will lead to more projects in Chile by Malaysian South-South Corp Bhd (MASSCORP), a consortium of 86 Malaysian corporate leaders. And Malaysia expects the agreement to open the door to building Latin American sales for Malaysia’s Proton cars. Expect to see Malaysian solar panels arriving in Chile, and Chilean wines sipped in Malaysia.

By the way, the WTO’s list of trade agreements is about to grow some more. Not only will the three U.S. FTAs with South Korea, Panama and Colombia be added this spring, but a brand new FTA between Japan and Peru goes into effect in March, freeing up nearly all of their trade in both directions over the next decade.

What’s the right way for small companies to do it, you ask? Look for the simplest and easiest markets in which to do business. Generally, that means starting out in your home market, the one you are most likely to fully understand and be comfortable with. Then move on to others that are easy to enter, gradually building up to the hard cases. Think about it – in anything else you might do, do you start out with the hardest opponent, going into the most inhospitable environment? No, you start training easily, gradually moving to tougher opposition until you can handle the very toughest.

But that is not how Hawaii’s companies tend to go about it. True, they begin with the Hawaii market and then move on to the U.S. mainland. But then they want to tackle China because China is in the headlines and thus is sexy. They used to want to go to Japan for the same reason. And most get their heads handed to them. There is a better way.

Let’s look at the APEC markets to see where it is easiest to move your product. Notice that I did not say the easiest places to sell your product, though they often go hand in hand – but the easiest markets to physically get your products in to.

The World Bank has already done the heavy lifting for you with its series of “Doing Business” publications – one of the newest of which is Doing Business in APEC 2011. The report looks at all sorts of factors in the ease of doing business in particular markets, but what catches my eye is the small section on the ease of trading across borders. It assesses how easy it is to move product into or out of a market, focusing on the red tape – numbers of documents to file, the number of days it takes to get it all done, and the cost per container of moving your goods in and out. The practical stuff that can make business profitable – or a pain in the okole (that’s a Hawaiian anatomy term). The World Bank ranks countries on the number of required documents (bank or customs clearance, port or warehousing, transport documents), the time it takes to move goods (documentation, customs clearance, inland transport and port/terminal handling), and the cost of all this per 20′ container. They don’t include ocean or air transport, or bribes. Both can be significant – and the latter is hard to measure.

data source: World Bank, 2011

What does this tell us? It can help you begin to narrow things down and decide to hold off on certain markets while you go after easier prey first. I have marked the easiest in each category with green, and the hardest with red, but that leaves the rest as a judgement call. It is pretty clear that you might want to try other APEC markets before you get your heart set on Russia. It is equally clear that Singapore and Hong Kong look pretty easy to enter. China? Documents and cost aren’t bad, but that’s an awful long time sitting on the dock waiting for clearance. And the United States? We’re fast, don’t require too many documents, but, lordy, are we expensive.

Mercy departs San Diego for Pacific Partnership 2010 (U.S. Navy photo)

Mercy made a brief stop at Pearl Harbor this weekend on her way to a multi-month humanitarian mission (Pacific Partnership 2010) in the Western Pacific and South East Asia.  Her combined military and civilian crew and medical staff will provide health care and training in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Palau.  Home-ported in San Diego, Mercy is one of two hospital ships under the U.S. flag, the other being her sister-ship USNS Comfort that scored headlines and praise for her work as a first-responder after the Haiti earthquake.  Mercy did similar work after the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami.

She is a remarkable ship, built as a 69,000 DWT tanker, but converted in the 1980s to a new career as a complete floating hospital.  Normally operating as a 250-bed hospital, she can quickly be configured for 900 beds.  She needs that ability in a humanitarian crisis or for wartime.  Mercy boasts all the services that a well-equipped hospital offers: complete operating rooms, recovery, x-ray and advanced imaging, a dental suite, an optometry laboratory, physical therapy, a huge pharmacy and much more.  She is even carrying a veterinary team on this mission.  Mercy’s mission is strongly supported by medical NGOs, who bring their own expertise, including provision of many of the interpreters needed during this voyage.

During the Pacific Partnership mission, Mercy will be the centerpiece of humanitarian programs that include not only operations and care on board Mercy, but construction and repair of clinics and other medical facilities, training for local medical personnel who will have the chance to work alongside Mercy’s professionals.  And the ship carries a full medical equipment repair shop that will fix broken gear, including advanced electronics, and providing training at all her stops.

This is where the business angle comes in.  It’s not just host country medical personnel who will be on board Mercy and seeing the equipment and supplies she uses.  Hospital administrators and Health Ministry officials will also be on board, working with Mercy’s hospital administrators.  These are the people who make decisions on what to procure for their own hospitals and clinics.  As I gazed around Mercy’s surgical suites, recovery rooms and medical labs, I saw equipment from General Electric, Welch Allyn, Stryker, Allied Healthcare, Beckman Coulter and Johnson & Johnson – all outstanding U.S. competitors.  Of course, there was equipment from other countries, too.  The star of the show was a brand new GE CAT scanner that looks like something right out of Star Trek.

Foreign administrators and officials are likely to pay attention when they see this equipment in action, and see their own medical personnel using it, in a non-commercial situation.  This is soft-sell, no salesmen present – but none are needed if your equipment is good enough to be selected for Mercy or Comfort.  We are not likely to be able to quantify the results, but medical equipment manufacturers should think of missions like Pacific Partnership 2010 as a floating trade show for their products.  You don’t need to pay for a booth or a trade show staff, but you do need to bid on Mercy’s future needs.  Offer the winning bid and your company can do well by doing good.