North America - 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 North America was 46.61 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 47.14 in 2017, while its lowest value was 12.26 in 1971.

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 20.92
1961 19.95
1962 19.29
1963 19.39
1964 19.10
1965 16.93
1966 16.44
1967 15.06
1968 14.04
1969 12.97
1970 13.02
1971 12.26
1972 12.38
1973 13.84
1974 18.80
1975 19.85
1976 21.28
1977 22.96
1978 21.77
1979 23.42
1980 24.32
1981 21.69
1982 20.38
1983 19.98
1984 18.04
1985 16.68
1986 14.82
1987 15.73
1988 15.91
1989 17.73
1990 18.83
1991 19.30
1992 21.10
1993 22.40
1994 23.55
1995 24.88
1996 26.24
1997 27.45
1998 28.44
1999 29.04
2000 30.50
2001 31.36
2002 33.13
2003 34.74
2004 36.52
2005 38.29
2006 40.27
2007 40.93
2008 41.85
2009 44.07
2010 45.57
2011 44.95
2012 44.64
2013 44.42
2014 44.15
2015 45.71
2016 46.38
2017 47.14
2018 46.95
2019 45.71
2020 46.61

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