Exports are easier to explain than imports. At least since the beginning of the industrial era almost three centuries ago, countries have tended export because:

1. Individuals and firms have been able to produce more of certain goods and services than can be consumed at home. This prompted a search for foreign opportunities to sell the "excess" production;
2. Individuals and firms have been able to sell goods or services to other countries at prices higher than the prices they can obtain domestically.

In today's global economy, exporting serves somewhat different purposes for developing and industrial countries.

Developing Countries

Although the economies of developing countries are typically not as productive as the economies of industrial countries, developing countries nonetheless produce some goods and services in amounts they are unable to use or consume at home, called a production surplus.

For example, some developing countries produce vast quantities of agricultural products, like cocoa in Cote d’Ivoire and coffee in Latin America, which their own populations are not large enough to consume. Other developing countries produce quantities of industrially valuable minerals, like oil or iron ore, that their own economies are too small or insufficiently industrialized to use.

But for many developing countries, exports also serve the purpose of earning foreign currency with which they can buy essential imports—foreign products that they are not able to manufacture, mine, or grow at home. Developing countries, in other words, sell exports, in part, so they can import. Exporting goods and services can also further advance developing nations' domestic economies.

Interconnectivity through global trade can also be problematic.  For example, up until 2008, Japan had a booming export business with the United States.  When American consumers became unable to buy Japanese products, Japanese companies lost that business.¹

Industrial Countries

Exports are also more than just an outlet for "excess" production for industrial countries. Because their economies are more diverse, industrial countries tend to:

1. export a much wider variety of products than do developing countries; and
2. export a larger proportion of their total production of goods and services.

Export sales help maintain high employment levels in the work forces of the United States and many other industrial countries. 

In 2006, in the United States an estimated six million people currently hold jobs that are either directly or indirectly involved in the production of goods or services sold to other countries.²   For the United States and other countries with highly productive, diverse economies, exports have become essential to economic stability and prosperity.

However, the economic crisis, which started in 2007, was felt around the world, and export related jobs suffered heavy losses.  According to some estimates, in the U.S. exports decreased by 15 percent in 2009.  Additionally, American goods are more expensive because the Dollar has risen against the Euro and other currencies (see next section).³  All of this means fewer jobs.  

Figures 6 and 7 illustrate the composition of world trade in goods and services in 2008.⁴

Manufactures include iron and steel, chemicals, office and telecom equipment, automobiles, textiles, and clothing.