South Asia - Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise imports)

Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise imports) in South Asia was 43.71 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 44.50 in 2017, while its lowest value was 8.08 in 1965.

Definition: Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies outside region are the sum of merchandise imports by the reporting economy from other low- and middle-income economies in other World Bank regions according to the World Bank classification of economies. Data are expressed as a percentage of total merchandise imports by the economy. Data are computed only if at least half of the economies in the partner country group had non-missing data.

Source: World Bank staff estimates based data from International Monetary Fund's Direction of Trade database.

See also:

Year Value
1960 12.17
1961 10.34
1962 10.61
1963 10.11
1964 9.54
1965 8.08
1966 12.59
1967 10.01
1968 11.23
1969 12.87
1970 14.73
1971 15.30
1972 15.71
1973 14.77
1974 18.84
1975 15.07
1976 15.88
1977 21.42
1978 18.39
1979 17.64
1980 21.36
1981 18.65
1982 16.48
1983 16.07
1984 16.62
1985 16.55
1986 13.91
1987 14.79
1988 14.44
1989 13.92
1990 15.17
1991 15.38
1992 18.49
1993 16.53
1994 20.26
1995 19.83
1996 20.22
1997 20.64
1998 22.39
1999 25.81
2000 19.58
2001 18.96
2002 20.45
2003 20.62
2004 21.01
2005 21.89
2006 31.58
2007 34.40
2008 35.00
2009 37.08
2010 36.22
2011 36.90
2012 36.88
2013 36.84
2014 39.96
2015 41.86
2016 43.88
2017 44.50
2018 43.30
2019 41.99
2020 43.71

Development Relevance: Although global integration has increased, low- and middle-income economies still face trade barriers when accessing other markets.

Limitations and Exceptions: Data on exports and imports are from the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Direction of Trade database and should be broadly consistent with data from other sources, such as the United Nations Statistics Division's Commodity Trade (Comtrade) database. All high-income economies and major low- and middle-income economies report trade data to the IMF on a timely basis, covering about 85 percent of trade for recent years. Trade data for less timely reporters and for countries that do not report are estimated using reports of trading partner countries. Therefore, data on trade between developing and high-income economies should be generally complete. But trade flows between many low- and middle-income economies - particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa - are not well recorded, and the value of trade among low- and middle-income economies may be understated.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Private Sector & Trade Indicators

Sub-Topic: Imports