Malawi - Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies within region (% of total merchandise imports)

Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies within region (% of total merchandise imports) in Malawi was 30.36 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 56 years was 68.36 in 1998, while its lowest value was 26.55 in 2019.

Definition: Merchandise imports from low- and middle-income economies within region are the sum of merchandise imports by the reporting economy from other low- and middle-income economies in the same World Bank region according to the World Bank classification of economies. Data are 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. 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
1964 49.03
1965 43.98
1966 39.56
1967 32.78
1968 33.00
1969 35.62
1970 37.79
1971 30.78
1972 34.95
1973 40.65
1974 42.41
1975 39.70
1976 39.36
1977 42.52
1978 42.12
1979 46.16
1980 43.72
1981 42.34
1982 46.34
1983 49.45
1984 51.80
1985 47.33
1986 37.55
1987 42.64
1988 43.70
1989 51.55
1990 42.08
1991 43.47
1992 45.56
1993 52.13
1994 52.84
1995 45.08
1996 65.71
1997 67.36
1998 68.36
1999 68.03
2000 53.22
2001 57.40
2002 57.86
2003 58.45
2004 58.68
2005 62.97
2006 61.51
2007 55.61
2008 60.33
2009 58.72
2010 44.58
2011 40.90
2012 41.30
2013 43.69
2014 40.83
2015 32.35
2016 33.02
2017 28.30
2018 28.78
2019 26.55
2020 30.36

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: Imports