Albania - Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies within region (% of total merchandise imports)

Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies within region (% of total merchandise imports) in Albania was 21.45 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 39 years was 21.94 in 2008, while its lowest value was 0.07 in 1984.

Definition: Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies within region are the sum of merchandise imports by the reporting economy from other low- and middle-income economies in the same World Bank region according to the World Bank classification of economies. Data are 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. No figures are shown for high-income economies, because they are a separate category in the World Bank classification of economies.

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

See also:

Year Value
1981 2.70
1982 0.20
1983 0.07
1984 0.07
1985 0.13
1986 0.23
1987 0.45
1988 1.35
1989 1.12
1990 1.48
1991 3.87
1992 3.83
1993 15.94
1994 15.81
1995 15.42
1996 10.91
1997 9.74
1998 9.30
1999 11.59
2000 12.62
2001 12.54
2002 13.13
2003 15.66
2004 15.95
2005 19.86
2006 21.13
2007 20.31
2008 21.94
2009 18.08
2010 18.55
2011 17.53
2012 20.31
2013 18.33
2014 19.94
2015 20.28
2016 18.31
2017 20.04
2018 19.36
2019 19.95
2020 21.45

Development Relevance: The relative importance of intraregional trade is higher for both landlocked countries and small countries with close trade links to the largest regional economy. For most low- and middle-income economies - especially smaller ones - there is a "geographic bias" favoring intraregional trade. Despite the broad trend toward globalization and the reduction of trade barriers, the relative share of intraregional trade increased for most economies between 1999 and 2010. This is due partly to trade-related advantages, such as proximity, lower transport costs, increased knowledge from repeated interaction, and cultural and historical affinity. The direction of trade is also influenced by preferential trade agreements that a country has made with other economies. Though formal agreements on trade liberalization do not automatically increase trade, they nevertheless affect the direction of trade between the participating economies.

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