Meaning & use
exporting
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“exporting” is a form of “export”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
verbtransitive or intransitive
Present participle of export: selling and sending goods or services to another country.
Grammar: It can take an object: exporting coffee; or stand alone: the firm is exporting now.
Patterns
- exporting something to somewhere
- exporting something from somewhere
The company is exporting handmade furniture to Japan.
Brazil is exporting more soybeans than ever before.
They have been exporting for ten years and now sell in forty countries.
noununcountable
The business of selling goods or services to buyers in other countries.
Grammar: No plural and no article is needed: exporting is difficult for small firms.
Patterns
- exporting of something
- exporting to somewhere
Exporting accounts for most of the farm's income.
Small businesses often need help with the paperwork involved in exporting.
The government offers loans to support exporting.
verbtransitivecomputing
Present participle of export in computing: saving data from one program in a form another program can open.
Grammar: It takes an object: exporting a spreadsheet as a CSV file.
Patterns
- exporting something to something
- exporting something as something
I am exporting the contacts list to a spreadsheet.
She is exporting the video as an MP4 file.
The software takes a while when exporting large photo albums.
Common combinations
- exporting countries
- Exporting countries agreed on a limit for next year.
- exporting goods
- The firm earns most of its money by exporting goods to Europe.
- start exporting
- We plan to start exporting our sauces next spring.
- exporting data
- Exporting data from the old system took all weekend.
- exporting and importing
- Exporting and importing both depend on stable exchange rates.
Synonyms and how they differ
- shipping abroad
- stresses the physical sending of goods, while exporting also covers the sale and the legal trade side.
- selling overseas
- is a looser everyday phrase and does not suggest customs or official trade rules.
- sending out
- is very general and can describe any dispatch, not only across borders.
Opposites
Word family
- export verb
- to sell goods to another country
- export noun
- a product sold abroad
- exporter noun
- a person or company that exports
- exportable adjective
- able to be exported
- exportation noun
- the act of exporting, a formal word
Commonly confused: exporting or importing?
exporting vs importing
Importing means bringing goods into a country; exporting means sending them out.
Practice
A bakery in Spain sells its cakes to customers in Germany. What is the bakery doing?
Choose one answer.
Selling goods to another country is exporting. Importing would be the German side buying them, and the other options are different words.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “exporting”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.