Being based in Lebanon, the writer was also engaged in resolving disputes in other Gulf nations. The 53rd part of a series describing the unknown triumphs and travails of doing international business

In the summer we had a number of Arab visitors, who came to the office, brought in by a local agent, mostly to obtain reassurance that the goods ordered by them from India will be shipped, and not have any further delays.
 
To be honest, such requests covered a number of items that were non-engineering in character, but the buyers felt that we should be able to help. Even before these requests came from buyers, whenever I received enquiries for items not covered by the Export Promotion Council (EEPC), I began to pass them to the Embassy so that commerce secretary VP Singh could tackle the issue regarding commission or shipment delays. But when enquiries were received, I began passing them directly to the concerned council. I had already quite a few friends in the Chemical Export Promotion Council, as I had dealt with them, while working for Dunlop in Calcutta, but for other items I passed on for appropriate action by the concerned organisation.
 
As it is the work was increasing, and the extra hours was not sufficient to cope with the deluge of letters and documents that we were receiving. Since I knew that it would take some time for getting government sanctions, I made appeals to the head office, that we must move to a bigger premises and be in line with STC offices, which had moved from the Embassy building to Piccadeli Building on the Hamra street itself. Besides, we needed an extra hand to handle the volume of work and be more helpful to the buyers when they needed our help.  Newer items like bright steel bars, hand-tools, a number of auto parts besides diesel engine parts were catching up and the volume was increasing.
 
Our exports to Kuwait had also increased and I had met a lot of our buyers while they stopped over in Beirut en route to Europe or were on a summer holiday in the mountains.  I felt that it would be in order for me to take a trip to Kuwait and submit my report. When I went there for a week, I was able to meet a great number of importers, some of whom I have had the pleasure of being associated much before I had joined the Council. Arabi WLL was our agent for Indian Cable Co and Paper Cable Consortium which procured the single largest cable contract, way back in 1967 and for which I had acted as the secretary, though I was working for the Incab company. Luckily for us, the shipments, the first lot of which I myself made, carrying the cargo of cables from all the manufacturers not only went on time, but subsequent orders as extension of the original contract came, much to the delight of Indian consortium, which was the British domain for a long time. The British manufacturers were totally surprised by this successful bid by Indians.
 
I decided that Kuwait would be my next target country for study. I obtained the visa and went on a research mission and thanks to the support that I received from the Embassy and the large number of importers, I was able to prepare and submit a report that was well received following which the Council published a handy reference book on Kuwait. As it is Kuwait was involved in tremendous building construction activity and a wide variety of goods and services from India were already in place. The influx of Indian executives as support staff greatly helped the situation, as invariably, they were able to trigger and generate interest and enquiries for Indian products and services.
 
One morning I received a surprise message from our head office that they wanted me to come to India for a special meeting not only with our own offices, but with other related government departments, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), etc, because of the urgent need to overcome many problems that had cropped up, relating to delays in shipments, payment of commissions, non clearance of documents due to L/C expiry and consignments sent on good faith, incurring demurrage because the importer did not clear the goods, etc. After a brief visit, I returned back to Beirut, having established even more closer rapport with all the officials concerned, since I left India a couple of years earlier.
 
While in India, I took up the issue of the need to move to a bigger office space and additional staff to cope up with the increased volume of trade and work, at least in line with the STC office, thankfully they assured me that this would be taken up on a priority basis.
 
This was the time when GEC of Calcutta had a serious problem with an exporter operating from Mecca, known as Al Bamanie, who had placed orders for a 1,000 fans but because of some delay in actual shipment, had simply not cleared the document and the goods were lying in the port. Bala Menon, the export manager, who was known to me, had taken up the issue with Dr RK Singh, our executive director, for our assistance but apparently there were some problems in meeting Bamanie's claims.

The importer had refused to meet the Embassy officials, and I received instructions to proceed to Jeddah and sort the issue and settle the matter. It was not an easy task; but I managed to get the cargo removed from the docks and have it stored in a bank's godown, and ensured, that the fans were disposed off with the least amount of loss. It is unbelievable, but I had to physically deliver complete fan by fan, in terms of motor, blades, regulator, rod and accessories box, so that we could count up; 999 fans were delivered, and one was found damaged!
 
After this incident, it was in store for me to visit Jeddah couple of more times to settle disputes.  One thing I must say of buyers, that when they liked you or trusted you, they went out of the way to accommodate you and support you by placing orders and opening Letters of Credit.  The satisfaction derived from this is an unforgettable experience.

 (AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce and was associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts. From being the advisor to exporters, he took over the mantle of a trader, travelled far and wide, and switched over to setting up garment factories and then worked in the US. He can be contacted at [email protected].)