Dem. People's Rep. Korea - 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 Dem. People's Rep. Korea was 84.72 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 39 years was 94.23 in 2017, while its lowest value was 23.02 in 2001.

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 34.40
1982 33.48
1983 34.16
1984 34.89
1985 34.11
1986 35.92
1987 28.20
1988 29.58
1989 35.57
1990 34.23
1991 41.49
1992 44.88
1993 45.67
1994 39.02
1995 38.52
1996 30.15
1997 42.98
1998 35.75
1999 34.83
2000 35.57
2001 23.02
2002 32.01
2003 45.92
2004 46.53
2005 43.52
2006 41.51
2007 49.78
2008 48.62
2009 64.26
2010 63.96
2011 82.97
2012 82.13
2013 86.08
2014 90.73
2015 88.10
2016 93.94
2017 94.23
2018 85.99
2019 93.08
2020 84.72

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