Malawi - 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 Malawi was 29.93 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 56 years was 36.80 in 2007, while its lowest value was 10.49 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
1964 31.30
1966 12.63
1967 13.54
1968 13.16
1969 17.00
1970 14.55
1971 29.06
1972 27.93
1973 26.17
1974 21.63
1975 17.41
1976 12.65
1977 14.03
1978 12.64
1979 10.49
1980 13.11
1981 17.26
1982 14.90
1983 23.25
1984 18.74
1985 18.45
1986 18.51
1987 16.19
1988 20.39
1989 16.44
1990 14.88
1991 10.61
1992 12.52
1993 15.60
1994 15.95
1995 16.15
1996 25.67
1997 20.93
1998 21.81
1999 19.38
2000 21.52
2001 24.19
2002 21.65
2003 29.74
2004 31.82
2005 29.18
2006 32.86
2007 36.80
2008 23.18
2009 25.68
2010 21.91
2011 32.87
2012 21.54
2013 24.83
2014 34.91
2015 33.16
2016 30.67
2017 27.31
2018 29.61
2019 28.17
2020 29.93

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