Central African Republic - 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 Central African Republic was 13.23 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 29.89 in 1996, while its lowest value was 2.33 in 1983.

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
1960 5.10
1963 5.30
1964 5.42
1965 4.78
1966 4.31
1967 3.64
1968 4.12
1969 2.64
1970 5.68
1971 3.55
1972 3.97
1973 5.05
1974 4.41
1975 5.18
1976 13.72
1977 10.65
1978 5.38
1979 6.08
1980 5.85
1981 7.41
1982 14.78
1983 2.33
1984 2.94
1985 6.45
1986 6.45
1987 16.70
1988 18.11
1989 19.88
1990 24.43
1991 15.64
1992 13.02
1993 10.51
1994 11.47
1995 11.01
1996 29.89
1997 19.54
1998 17.42
1999 17.99
2000 19.22
2001 19.00
2002 16.89
2003 14.11
2004 9.69
2005 28.09
2006 4.76
2007 16.71
2008 22.34
2009 17.14
2010 16.69
2011 18.01
2012 15.35
2013 14.40
2014 15.00
2015 21.61
2016 12.38
2017 17.93
2018 16.72
2019 12.50
2020 13.23

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