Dem. People's Rep. Korea - Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies within region (% of total merchandise exports)

Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies within region (% of total merchandise exports) in Dem. People's Rep. Korea was 30.45 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 39 years was 84.04 in 2016, while its lowest value was 4.99 in 2000.

Definition: Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies within region are the sum of merchandise exports from the reporting economy to other low- and middle-income economies in the same World Bank region as a percentage of total merchandise exports 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 37.52
1982 41.65
1983 39.52
1984 40.32
1985 38.13
1986 41.35
1987 31.95
1988 28.32
1989 23.84
1990 23.81
1991 19.50
1992 21.41
1993 35.05
1994 27.06
1995 13.90
1996 11.03
1997 16.80
1998 7.86
1999 7.48
2000 4.99
2001 17.01
2002 31.03
2003 45.72
2004 50.71
2005 47.46
2006 33.61
2007 22.18
2008 37.01
2009 54.07
2010 53.12
2011 63.40
2012 76.69
2013 80.48
2014 82.31
2015 75.49
2016 84.04
2017 83.29
2018 28.66
2019 41.93
2020 30.45

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: Exports