Export Glossary-S

Safeguards

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) permits two forms of multilateral safeguards: (a) a country's right to impose temporary import controls or other trade restrictions to prevent commercial injury to domestic industry, and (b) the corresponding right of exporters not to be deprived arbitrarily of access to markets.

Sales Representative

An agent who distributes, represents, services, or sells goods on behalf of foreign sellers.

Sanitary Certificate

Certificate which attests to the purity or absence of disease or pests in the shipment of food products, plants, seeds, and live animals.

Schedule B

Refers to Schedule B, Statistical Classification of Domestic and Foreign Commodities Exported from the United States. All commodities exported from the United States must be assigned a seven-digit Schedule B number.

Scheduled Purchase

A purchase for which a bid opening date is pre-schedules so that agency requirements for the period covered by the contract can be gathered and combined for the Invitation for Bids.

Shipper's Export Declaration

A form required for all shipments by the U.S. Treasury Department and prepared by a shipper, indicating the value, weight, destination, and other basic information about an export shipment.

Ship's Manifest

An instrument in writing, signed by the captain of a ship, that lists the individual shipments constituting the ship's cargo.

Shipment

A shipment is all of the cargo carried under the terms of a single bill of lading.

Shipper's Export Declaration

The SED includes complete particulars on individual shipments and is used to control exports and act as a source document for the official U.S. export statistics. SEDs must be prepared for shipments through the U.S. Postal Service when the shipment is valued over $500. SEDs are required for shipments, other than by the U.S. Postal Service, where the value of commodities classified under each individual Schedule B number is over $2,500. SEDs must be prepared, regardless of value, for all shipments requiring a validated export license or destined for countries prohibited by the Export Administration Regulations. SEDs are prepared by the exporter and the exporter's agent and delivered to the exporting carrier (such as: post office, airline, or vessel line). The exporting carrier presents the required number of copies to the U.S. Customs Service at the port of export

Shipper's Load and Count

Note on bill of lading indication that the contents of a container were loaded and counted by the shipper and not checked or verified by the Steamship Company.

Shipping Terms

Terms used in price quotation that include the cost of the merchandise plus the cost of any other services that the beneficiary of a letter of credit had to pay for shipping the merchandise. The "price quote" is embodied in the letter of credit so that the beneficiary will be reimbursed under the letter of credit for the cost of the merchandise plus the cost of the prepaid services.

Shipping Weight

Shipping weight represents the gross weight in kilograms of shipments, including the weight of moisture content, wrappings, crates, boxes, and containers (other than cargo vans and similar substantial outer containers).

Short Supply

Commodities in short supply may be subject to export controls to protect the domestic economy from the excessive drain of scarce materials and to reduce the serious inflationary impact of satisfying foreign demand. Items that the U.S. controls for short supply purposes include petroleum and petroleum products, unprocessed western red cedar, and shipment of horses by sea. The controls are included in the Export Administration Regulations.

SIC

See Standard Industrial Classification system.

Sight Draft (S/D)

A draft that is payable upon presentation to the drawee. Compare Date Draft and Time Draft.

Single Currency Peg

See: Exchange Rate Classifications.

Soft Currency

The currency of a nation in which exchange may be made only with difficulty. Soft currency countries typically have minimal exchange reserves and deficits in their balance of payments.

Soft Loan

Commonly, a loan from a government or multilateral development bank with a long repayment period and below-market interest

Specially Designated Nationals

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Department of the Treasury, implements and enforces financial and trade sanctions. FAC has the authority to include within the definition of the sanctioned government those individuals and entities that FAC has determined are owned by, controlled by, or acting directly or indirectly on behalf of the target government. Parties so identified are known as Specially Designated Nationals or SDNs. In practice, an SDN is a target government body, representative, intermediary, or front (whether overt or covert) that usually is located in a third country and functions as an extension of the sanctioned government. An SDN may also be a third-party company that otherwise becomes owned or controlled by the target government or that operates on its behalf. No criminal linkage is necessary. Ownership by, control by, acting on behalf of, or profiting from trade with the target government or country would suffice to qualify a person for designation.

Special Policy of Insurance

Document issued on behalf of the Underwriter stating the terms and conditions of the marine insurance. Issued when evidence of insurance is required, as by the bank issuing the Letter of Credit.

Specification

A clear and complete descriptive statement covering the technical point of any item ordered. A specification using a proprietary name or equal is acceptable.

Spot Exchange

The purchase or sale of foreign exchange for immediate delivery.

Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)

A standard numerical code system used by the U.S. government to classify products and services.

Standard International Trade Classification (SITC)

A standard numerical code system developed by the United Nations to classify commodities used in international trade.

State Trading Enterprises

STEs are entities established by governments to import, export and/or produce certain products. Examples include: government-operated import/export monopolies and marketing boards or private companies that receive special or exclusive privileges from their governments to engage in trading activities.

STC (Said to Contain)

Sometimes applied by a forwarder or a carrier to documents as part of the description of the goods, e.g., "10 cartons stc 1,000 textbooks."

Steamship Conference

A group of steamship operators that operate under mutually agreed-upon freight rates.

Straight Bill of Lading

A nonnegotiable bill of lading in which the goods are consigned directly to a named consignee.

Subcontractor Production

Overseas production of a part or component of a U.S.-origin article. The subcontract does not necessarily involve license of technical information and is usually a direct commercial arrangement between the U.S. manufacturer and a foreign producer.

Subrogation

The operation by which the insurance company (on payment of a claim) assumes all of the assured's rights to recovery from any third parties; substitution of one creditor for another.

Subsidies

GATT does not directly define subsidies. The U.S. regards a subsidy as a bounty or grant paid for the manufacture, production, or export of an article. Export subsidies are contingent on exports; domestic subsidies are conferred on production without reference to exports. While governments sometimes make outright payments to firms; subsidies usually take a less direct form (R&D support, tax breaks, loans on preferential terms, and provision of raw materials at below-market prices).

Supplier Credit

Credits granted by a supplier, usually through commercial banks, to a foreign buyer under deferred payment terms.

Surveyor

A marine specialist who examines damaged property and determines the cause, nature, and extent of damage and methods of repair and/or replacement. He is not an adjuster, and all his actions are without prejudice to policy terms and conditions.

Swaps

Swaps take dozens of forms but often entail the exchange of one type of asset or payment for another. Some of the more common forms are: cross-border; currency; debt-for-charity; debt-for-commodity; debt-for-debt; debt-for-development; debt-for-equity; debt-for-export; debt-for-local-currency; debt-for-nature; discount; dual currency; interest rate; inward; premium; reverse; and vanilla. Minor variation in names is common.

Swing

Margin of credit allowed on a bilateral clearing account beyond which all trade exchanges stop and cannot be resumed until the swing imbalance is reduced.

Switch Arrangements

A form of countertrade in which unused purchase rights under government-to-government trade (clearing agreements) on unwanted goods received by a firm in a countertrade transaction are sold at a discount to buyers for cash.

Switch Trading

Trade activities connected with converting bilateral clearing imbalances into convertible currencies through the sale of the clearing imbalance to switch traders at discounted prices. The switch traders then reduce or eliminate the imbalance through import/export transactions that they arrange. The term is also used to denote nonclearing transactions involving triangular or multiple sales of different goods by various brokers. By a series of trades at discounted prices, a primary exporter can convert into hard currency revenues a soft currency payment or a countertraded product hard to market.