Hypernym for “import” and “export”?
What word could describe an operation of either importing or exporting?
X is to import and export as migration is to immigration and emigration.
Porting isn't the word I'm looking for, I don't think, but that's what I'm getting at. Cheers!
The right comparative, admittedly obscure, word is portation, not porting.
OED: the act of carrying or transferring.
As noted earlier, a more precise word will depend on the context:
- in the context of international commerce, import and export are both forms of international trade
- in the context of a single business, import and export are both forms of transport of goods or services (usually to or from a different country, but not always)
- in the context of software systems, import and export are usually both forms of integration between software systems, or in a somewhat more general sense, data transfer (or, less frequently, data transport)
Combining suggestions:
International trade
because import and export are by definition trade between countries.