Low 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 Low income was 38.21 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 38.21 in 2020, while its lowest value was 6.64 in 1985.

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 11.04
1961 10.94
1962 11.57
1963 8.60
1964 7.76
1965 8.39
1966 8.94
1967 8.55
1968 7.46
1969 9.35
1970 7.44
1971 10.89
1972 9.08
1973 9.12
1974 10.82
1975 10.22
1976 9.17
1977 9.54
1978 7.79
1979 7.29
1980 7.65
1981 7.80
1982 9.41
1983 7.27
1984 7.01
1985 6.64
1986 8.00
1987 7.13
1988 9.80
1989 9.07
1990 10.21
1991 11.50
1992 11.90
1993 13.18
1994 12.70
1995 15.01
1996 16.60
1997 14.92
1998 14.81
1999 16.45
2000 27.98
2001 27.99
2002 27.46
2003 28.62
2004 32.09
2005 28.63
2006 26.90
2007 30.28
2008 35.17
2009 35.87
2010 35.61
2011 31.83
2012 30.78
2013 28.04
2014 32.87
2015 34.76
2016 37.66
2017 36.13
2018 36.74
2019 37.17
2020 38.21

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