Lebanon - 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 Lebanon was 14.66 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 43.26 in 1960, while its lowest value was 7.60 in 1989.

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 43.26
1961 40.89
1963 28.48
1964 30.95
1965 28.09
1966 34.90
1967 29.09
1968 32.22
1969 29.71
1970 29.46
1971 34.33
1972 27.89
1973 21.84
1981 22.56
1982 20.40
1983 19.29
1984 15.73
1985 19.25
1986 18.06
1987 13.07
1988 12.89
1989 7.60
1990 16.05
1991 19.94
1992 26.42
1993 22.73
1994 20.42
1995 14.11
1996 14.91
1997 16.41
1998 17.39
1999 17.55
2000 19.12
2001 23.10
2002 25.80
2003 24.05
2004 33.70
2005 31.81
2006 23.58
2007 24.86
2008 27.26
2009 23.47
2010 23.43
2011 17.19
2012 21.00
2013 31.22
2014 26.51
2015 24.58
2016 20.90
2017 20.91
2018 20.79
2019 17.01
2020 14.66

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