THE WORK OF AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY ABROAD The first exclusive foreign office of the American Express Company was opened in London in 1891, just fifty years after the establishment of the company in this country. In the twenty-four years that have followed the establishment of that first foreign office in The American Express Company undertakes all kinds of domestic and foreign exchange transactions, throughout the world, and attends to the forwarding of freight and parcels, both export and import. In addition, they are tourist and transportation agents for the principal European railway and steamship lines, a function known to every American traveler who has been welcomed at the American Express offices abroad. "Export Selling Problems? Supplementing this chain of exclusive foreign offices, the Company maintains a very large list of banking and shipping correspondents in the principal cities and seaports of the world. No small part in that development has been played by the famous American Express Travelers Cheque, originated by this Company and recognized the world over as a practically international universal currency. The sales of American Express financial paper:-foreign drafts, cable transfers, money orders, letters of credit, Travelers Cheques, etc., runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars yearly. The measure of the American Express Company from a banking viewpoint may be realized from the fact that it handles a greater number of foreign exchange transactions, issues more foreign financial paper, than any other commercial institution in the United States. To cover these tremendous sales of foreign exchange, the American Express Company maintains huge cash balances in all the financial centers abroad, for use in cashing the American Express financial paper. That in turn means that the American Express is one of the principal buyers of foreign exchange in this country. WHAT AMERICAN EXPRESS FOREIGN SERVICE MEANS TO THE MANUFACTURER To the home manufacturer, the development of the American Express organization in the foreign field means that he can ship goods from his own plant to practically any port in the civilized world, in carload freight lots or in express packages, on an American Express through bill of lading. Through its Financial Department, the Company can accept his foreign drafts for collection, collect the money, and bring back the funds to the American manufacturer. American Express service all the way, in the hands or under the supervision of a responsible American-built organization, affords him a combination of protection, safety and reliability that has no equal. In foreign fields, the American Express Company is undoubtedly more intimately known, by virtue of its years of successful dealing, than any other American institution. Many years of growth and success abroad have made possible its splendid standing and rating in those foreign territories. THE FOREIGN TRADE INFORMATION BUREAU The business of the Foreign Trade Information Bureau is the practical promotion of trade between America and foreign countries. Its activities are twofold: first, as a bureau of reliable information on foreign markets, and, second, as a service of practical assistance in the introduction of American goods, and in the securing of proper connections in the foreign fields. It operates in direct connection with every one of the foreign branch offices of the American Express Company in Europe, South America and the Far East. That relation with the Company's offices abroad makes the Foreign Trade Information Bureau a clearing house of trade information between the foreign markets and the interested exporting and importing concerns in this country. The general service of the Foreign Trade Information Bureau is to furnish reliable information on the ways and means of securing "The Value of an Introduction? |