Lower middle 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 Lower middle income was 26.68 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 27.81 in 2017, while its lowest value was 6.90 in 1961.

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 8.08
1961 6.90
1962 7.70
1963 7.26
1964 6.93
1965 7.04
1966 8.39
1967 7.26
1968 7.13
1969 7.32
1970 7.97
1971 8.04
1972 7.81
1973 8.19
1974 9.61
1975 8.28
1976 7.70
1977 7.98
1978 7.54
1979 8.51
1980 9.83
1981 8.93
1982 9.04
1983 9.10
1984 9.60
1985 10.42
1986 9.14
1987 9.61
1988 9.68
1989 10.03
1990 9.56
1991 8.79
1992 9.94
1993 10.29
1994 10.76
1995 11.13
1996 11.85
1997 12.12
1998 13.05
1999 14.41
2000 12.82
2001 13.64
2002 14.43
2003 15.10
2004 15.13
2005 16.05
2006 19.56
2007 21.59
2008 22.78
2009 23.75
2010 23.60
2011 25.07
2012 25.88
2013 25.56
2014 27.22
2015 27.20
2016 27.11
2017 27.81
2018 27.76
2019 27.24
2020 26.68

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