Fun fact
Jute was once called Bangladesh's "golden fibre".
For a long time, jute was the country's biggest export. The golden colour of the fibre and the money it earned gave it the nickname.
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For a long time, jute was the country's biggest export. The golden colour of the fibre and the money it earned gave it the nickname.
So the FOB and CIF on your export LC belong to a family of trade terms that is almost 90 years old. It has been updated many times since; the version in use today is Incoterms 2020.
Banks around the world wanted one common rule book for LCs. UCP 600, the version we use now, took effect in 2007.
Before SWIFT, banks sent payment instructions by telex, and test keys had to be checked by hand. Today an MT700 crosses the world in seconds.
Container shipping took off in 1956, when an American trucking businessman, Malcom McLean, loaded the first containers onto a converted tanker. Before that, dockworkers loaded cargo sack by sack.
Centuries ago, Dhaka's muslin cloth was so fine that traders from far away came to buy it. The country's trade story is much older than the EXP form.
It comes from "tanka", an old word used in the region for coins and money.
A popular story says Italian money-changers worked at benches (banca). If one couldn't pay, his bench was broken: banca rotta.
That T-shirt on a shelf in Europe has a good chance of saying "Made in Bangladesh", and of having passed through a Bangladeshi bank's export desk.
That's why a delay at Chattogram can turn into a lot of delayed export proceeds a few months later.
Clean, friendly, and about the work, never about people, banks or officials.
It had too many discrepancies and needed an amendment.
The senior answers: "Usance has a fixed number of days."
Because they always come in full sets.
"If you don't submit me today, we're both going to be overdue."
I said, "The first time to read it, the second time to understand it, and the third time because UCP 600 is watching."
Because he knew every rate comes back… eventually.
Running after export proceeds before the four months are over.
Someone who will learn everything the hard way. Ask. There are no silly questions here.