The UK professional body for international trade, helping businesses and individuals export and import, with its headquarters in Peterborough.
The Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade (formerly the Institute of Export & International Trade, or IOE&IT) is a professional membership body for businesses and people involved in importing, exporting and international trade. It offers advice, training and qualifications to those who need to know how to sell goods abroad or bring them into the UK, covering topics such as customs, shipping, documents and rules of origin. It describes itself as the leading authority in best practice and competence for businesses trading globally.
The Institute was established in 1935, a period of economic change in the UK. A history piece on its website recalls that in the 1960s and 1970s it had few staff and was based in a small office on Hallam Street in London's West End, and that student members pushed it to organise events and visits to places such as the container port at Felixstowe. It later moved to Peterborough. On its mission, director general Marco Forgione said in 2022 that the Institute aims to support businesses and give individuals the expertise to trade effectively, sustainably and competitively, and that international trade is essential to the UK's economic health.
Peterborough has been the Institute's headquarters for decades. Export House was its head office for over three decades, and in February 2022 it opened a new building called Trade House, opposite Export House, on Minerva Business Park. Mr Forgione said Peterborough would always be where the Institute has its headquarters. In the preceding twelve months it also opened offices in London, Belfast and Nairobi, which is why those locations are noted for 2022 and could have changed since. The name changed to the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade on 10 July 2024, according to the same web article.
The Institute's growth tells you something about its culture. According to its own account, its team grew from fewer than 20 people to more than 120 in around two years up to 2022, and many staff come from Peterborough and elsewhere in the UK. Member Monthly, the bulletin it publishes, is open to members and non-members alike, and it offers student membership, so people at the start of their careers are part of its community.
The jobs here include qualification and course developers, trainers, membership and customer support, trade policy and advice specialists, events and communications staff, and managers who run the offices. If you enjoy languages, geography, business or politics, international trade is a field where all of these meet. The Institute helps businesses of every size find a way to export, and the people who work there learn how goods really cross borders.
Website: www.export.org.uk
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