The Department of Commerce is a federal ministerial department with the following missions;
- Protect Oceanyka's sovereignty by preventing the import or export of merchandise which can be considered illegal by the Oceanykan Constitution.
- Request, escort, receive and distribute imported merchandise required by the Oceanykan Government.
- Organise C3-type exports (Continuous, Cooperative and Coordinated).
- Manage commercial ports owned by the Federation and the services which they provide, charging commercially competitive fees for their usage.
- Conduct internal market analysis missions to learn of the nation's supply of money, resources, foodstuffs, weapons and other resources.
For these missions the Department of Commerce has two forces at its disposal; the Federal Port Authority and the Economic Intelligence Service. Its head is the Minister of Commerce, aided in their functions mainly by the Director of the Federal Port Authority, though the Assistant-Minister of Foreign Trade does much of the logistical and business side of things.
As mentioned, the first mission of the DoC is to protect Oceanyka's commercial sovereignty, being aided by other federal institutions such as the Department of Security, the Department of State and the Armed Forces of the Oceanykan Federation to prevent the entry or exit of illegal merchandise. As the Oceanykan Constitution subscribes to a principle of laissez-faire, the only two types of goods which this mission refers to are slaves and weapons of mass destruction.
The second and third mission allow the Department of Commerce to act as the Federation's most immediate tool for interaction with the world economy. Anything which the Government might require imported from the outside, such as office paper or Soviet weaponry, will be wholly dealt with by this ministerial department from its negotiation until it arrives at its destination. Transportation will be delegated to private contractors, as the DoC does not possess a cargo fleet of its own, but does have an obligation to escort these contractors (either through mercenary sailors or using its own Federal Port Authority warships). C3 exports (designated as so because they are Cooperative, Continuous and Coordinated) are a unique type of activity in which the Department of Commerce negotiates with a foreign institution, corporation or state for the reliable export of a certain type of Oceanykan merchandise for a period of time, at an agreed upon price. The DoC then negotiates with local suppliers which do not possess the means or moral credibility to provide continuous and reliable quantities of said goods, as well as with local transport companies, thus acting as the middleman, and receiving a sum of the trade deal's profits (distributing the majority to the C3 export deal's participants, which can sometimes number in the hundreds).
The fourth mission of the DoC refers to the control, maintenance and expansion of ports owned by the Oceanykan Federation, most of which lie within the Bass Strait Naval Complex and across the southern coast, though these are only 11% of the nation's ports by number and 17% by size. Fees may be charged for any services which the port may offer such as refuelling, resupply, rearming, repairs, the disembarking of goods, or simply for usage of the port (scaling by size). Control of these ports is wholly delegated to the Federal Port Authority.
Its fifth and final mission is the only function of its elusive Economic Intelligence Unit, which is to figure out the workings of the Oceanykan internal market through both transparent (surveys, observation, monitoring) and covert (espionage, interrogation, infiltration) means. This way the Department of Commerce can create its famous Quarterly Market Report of the Oceanykan Federation, the only reliable source for such information. QMRs are primarily oriented towards visualising the demand and supply of a variety of goods such as resources, weapons, foodstuffs, luxury goods, vehicles, fuels, machinery, ammunition, clothes, etc. It is much more accurate than the market analysis of any company, describing even minute detail. Perhaps the most important function of the QMR is measuring the country's money supply, information which the Federal Bank desperately needs for its monetary policy.