IDA only - 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 IDA only was 30.05 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 30.91 in 2016, while its lowest value was 7.00 in 1968.

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 8.52
1961 8.17
1962 8.52
1963 7.35
1964 7.19
1965 7.50
1966 7.60
1967 7.06
1968 7.00
1969 7.77
1970 7.06
1971 9.36
1972 8.52
1973 9.44
1974 10.32
1975 8.86
1976 8.14
1977 8.82
1978 7.73
1979 7.79
1980 8.03
1981 8.06
1982 9.00
1983 7.79
1984 7.89
1985 7.27
1986 8.28
1987 7.26
1988 8.47
1989 8.62
1990 8.89
1991 10.03
1992 11.30
1993 11.18
1994 11.43
1995 12.72
1996 12.27
1997 12.07
1998 12.55
1999 13.09
2000 19.53
2001 20.41
2002 20.26
2003 21.93
2004 23.34
2005 20.73
2006 20.75
2007 25.19
2008 28.71
2009 30.76
2010 30.35
2011 28.18
2012 27.03
2013 25.85
2014 28.25
2015 28.62
2016 30.91
2017 28.50
2018 29.37
2019 30.12
2020 30.05

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