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The Dominican Republic is usually known as the country of Latin America. However, that’s not necessarily the entire picture as the Dominican Republic is such as mining, finance, telecommunications, and infrastructure. Foreign direct investment flowing into the country allows this growth to be sustainable and continue into the future. There are many business factors that provided the foundation for the Dominican Republic’s growth in these various sectors.

Last month’s  introduced readers to cloud computing, as well as digging deeper into numerous characteristics of the cloud. A particularly interesting aspect of cloud computing is the risks and benefits to the global environment. With the explosive growth of cloud computing in recent years, this is quickly becoming a very heated debate.

Online shopping is being used in many countries around the world and its use is becoming more widespread each year. In emerging countries such as India, the rapidly with over three thousand e-commerce centers found online. Recently, businesses in South Korea have taken by allowing people to shop in virtual supermarkets with their smartphone.

Here at Michigan State University, agricultural business has played a very important role in the history and development of the university. In 1855, Michigan’s governor signed a bill establishing the nation’s first agriculture college, the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan. The nation’s pioneer land-grant university later became known as Michigan State University. Created by the International Business Center at Michigan State University, globalEDGE has noted the importance of agriculture in our university’s foundation and the significant role agriculture plays in the international business world. For these reasons, globalEDGE provides many resources pertaining to agribusiness which can help you recognize the major international business trends in the agriculture industry.

With increased awareness of environmental change in today’s business world, more and more companies are looking for innovative resources to reduce their “footprint” in any way possible. Some have started cutting down on packaging; others have redesigned their containers with recycled material. Certain companies are one step ahead of these methods and have turned to agricultural products to eliminate packaging wastes. 

With the world population recently reaching 7 billion, many wonder how the will keep up to feed this multitude of people. It seems that much of the success will come from developing countries. Many of these countries are a large part of the growing population and also have natural resources that produce a large amount of the world’s agricultural products. Still, an enormous amount of effort is needed to increase agricultural production in developing countries.

programs, commonly known as C.S.A.’s, were born in Japan and Switzerland in the 1960s and 1970s.  Since then, C.S.A.’s have expanded globally and are now becoming increasingly popular worldwide.  These programs enable consumers to buy fruits, vegetables, meats, and other goods in advance that are grown by local farmers.  Most commonly, consumers receive baskets weekly containing the goods specified in their subscriptions.  The growth of these programs is due largely in part to the numerous advantages that both consumers and farmers are experiencing.

During routine trips to the supermarket, shoppers frequently face choices between organic and conventional food products.  While these items may look nearly identical at first glance, they likely arrived on store shelves via radically different supply chains.  Global regions have had varying reactions to the organic food movement.  The future of may well be determined by consumer preferences between organic and conventional foods.

It is hard to imagine life without food – in fact, it is impossible. And although many people don't recognize it, there is big business behind getting food from the farm to your kitchen table. The agribusiness sector is a covering the entire business of food production ranging from planting to the distribution and selling of the end product. New technologies and global trends are changing the way these businesses operate. The Agribusiness Blog Series will cover many of these topics including organic farming, new sales methods, and the new uses of agriculture products.

This past week, the passed a trio of free trade agreements removing trade barriers with the countries of , , and . The free trade agreements will have many impacts on international trade tendencies between these countries as the pacts will essentially eliminate tariffs faced by exporters in all four countries. Exports of each country are expected to rise as a result of the agreements and many businesses small or large will be able to compete in new markets abroad. The trade relationships between each country will dramatically change as the new trade agreements mark the biggest opportunity for exporting businesses in decades.