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

Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise imports) in High income was 34.07 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 34.07 in 2020, while its lowest value was 13.38 in 1987.

Definition: Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies outside region are the sum of merchandise imports by the reporting economy from other low- and middle-income economies in other World Bank regions according to the World Bank classification of economies. Data are expressed 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.

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

See also:

Year Value
1960 18.55
1961 17.77
1962 17.63
1963 17.61
1964 17.89
1965 17.23
1966 17.34
1967 16.72
1968 16.39
1969 15.87
1970 15.08
1971 14.41
1972 14.19
1973 14.98
1974 18.22
1975 17.36
1976 17.64
1977 18.20
1978 16.89
1979 17.51
1980 17.76
1981 16.32
1982 16.59
1983 16.77
1984 16.75
1985 16.48
1986 13.54
1987 13.38
1988 13.39
1989 14.21
1990 14.41
1991 15.13
1992 16.08
1993 18.71
1994 19.42
1995 19.48
1996 20.34
1997 20.82
1998 20.43
1999 21.18
2000 23.20
2001 23.58
2002 24.24
2003 24.93
2004 25.88
2005 27.58
2006 28.67
2007 28.98
2008 30.06
2009 30.18
2010 32.28
2011 32.29
2012 33.13
2013 32.39
2014 32.42
2015 33.14
2016 32.86
2017 33.65
2018 33.63
2019 33.55
2020 34.07

Development Relevance: Although global integration has increased, low- and middle-income economies still face trade barriers when accessing other markets.

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