QUERY FROM THOMAS (KOREA)
Dear friends,
How do you deal with Algerian banks which insist on
issuing their letter of credit in French ?
With warmest regards,
Thomas
You need to have drunk oodles of the Francophonie koolaid to believe that a Korean bloke will read anything you write to him in French. Heck, not even the Vietnamese will read it:
During my eighteen years working for Vietcombank, I saw only one L/C issued in French. The issuing bank had to re-issue another in English as the beneficiary refused to take up the L/C issued in French.
Best regards,
Nguyen Huu Duc
Then comes another guy who apparently did not get the memo about the dominant role of French on all five continents and shows understanding of the Korean querent's perplexity. To make matters worse, he is from Belgium of all places:
Working with LC's in French causes no big problems for most banks in Western Europe as it is still an important language and many bank employees know sufficient other language. However, the use of French is declining also in EU.
If your staff does not know sufficient French (which I can understand) there are several possibilities to cope with...
Ouch! Our French friends' pride smarts. Methinks we'll hear more of their calls for the internet to come under UN control, allowing the French-speaking group of nations to stop any such talk of decline being published. What a beautiful world that would be!
