Unit-III
Chapter-9
International Trade
You are already familiar with the term “trade”
as a tertiary activity which you have studied in
Chapter 7 of this book. You know that trade
means the voluntary exchange of goods and
services. Two parties are required to trade. One
person sells and the other purchases. In certain
places, people barter their goods. For both the
parties trade is mutually beneficial.
Trade may be conducted at two levels:
international and national. International trade
is the exchange of goods and services among
countries across national boundaries.
Countries need to trade to obtain commodities,
they cannot produce themselves or they can
purchase elsewhere at a lower price.
The initial form of trade in primitive
societies was the barter system, where direct
exchange of goods took place. In this system if
you were a potter and were in need of a plumber,
you would have to look for a plumber who
would be in need of pots and you could
exchange your pots for his plumbing service.
Fig. 9.1: Two women practising barter system in
Jon Beel Mela
Every January after the harvest season Jon Beel Mela
takes place in Jagirod, 35 km away from Guwahati and
it is possibly the only fair In India, where barter system
is still alive. A big market is organised during this fair
and people from various tribes and communities ex-
change their products.
The difficulties of barter system were
overcome by the introduction of money. In the
olden times, before paper and coin currency
Fundamentals of Human Geography
82
came into being, rare objects with very high
intrinsic value served as money, like,
flintstones, obsidian, cowrie shells, tiger’s
paws, whale’s teeth, dogs teeth, skins, furs,
cattle, rice, peppercorns, salt, small tools,
copper, silver and gold.
The word salary comes from the Latin word Salarium
which means payment by salt. As in those times
producing salt from sea water was unknown and could
only be made from rock salt which was rare and
expensive. That is why it became a mode of payment.
HISTORY OF INTERNATIO