IDA total - 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 IDA total was 22.06 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 23.53 in 2016, while its lowest value was 5.45 in 1979.

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
1960 7.42
1961 7.31
1962 8.10
1963 7.79
1964 10.01
1965 11.11
1966 7.89
1967 6.77
1968 8.17
1969 8.75
1970 8.76
1971 8.19
1972 9.80
1973 9.51
1974 8.23
1975 6.82
1976 5.69
1977 5.75
1978 6.29
1979 5.45
1980 8.75
1981 7.27
1982 7.64
1983 7.70
1984 7.58
1985 6.83
1986 7.82
1987 8.58
1988 8.94
1989 8.75
1990 9.22
1991 10.05
1992 10.66
1993 11.60
1994 13.38
1995 14.13
1996 11.95
1997 12.77
1998 14.38
1999 12.93
2000 13.47
2001 13.93
2002 14.88
2003 15.33
2004 16.66
2005 16.61
2006 17.41
2007 19.40
2008 21.38
2009 23.15
2010 20.71
2011 19.95
2012 20.20
2013 21.55
2014 21.91
2015 22.76
2016 23.53
2017 22.25
2018 21.89
2019 21.82
2020 22.06

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