Ecuador - 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 Ecuador was 23.04 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 31.39 in 2005, while its lowest value was 1.20 in 1961.

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 2.38
1961 1.20
1962 4.66
1963 3.47
1964 5.36
1965 4.45
1966 4.39
1967 5.00
1968 4.48
1969 6.10
1970 8.52
1971 11.46
1972 10.58
1973 12.61
1974 11.97
1975 9.71
1976 9.27
1977 9.66
1978 9.77
1979 11.06
1980 10.06
1981 10.22
1982 11.17
1983 14.64
1984 20.81
1985 17.39
1986 15.31
1987 13.70
1988 15.02
1989 20.05
1990 17.87
1991 15.85
1992 16.53
1993 13.32
1994 21.63
1995 20.91
1996 23.27
1997 20.67
1998 21.91
1999 23.35
2000 24.75
2001 25.44
2002 28.25
2003 29.29
2004 31.00
2005 31.39
2006 30.00
2007 26.67
2008 24.55
2009 26.44
2010 27.06
2011 24.08
2012 22.93
2013 21.97
2014 21.25
2015 21.13
2016 23.69
2017 24.54
2018 23.22
2019 22.38
2020 23.04

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