Rwanda - 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 Rwanda was 37.61 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 56 years was 53.22 in 2006, while its lowest value was 12.41 in 1986.

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 37.93
1965 29.70
1966 21.50
1967 21.29
1968 24.67
1969 24.79
1970 21.11
1971 14.07
1972 15.16
1973 19.26
1974 15.28
1975 14.58
1976 14.92
1977 14.33
1978 13.54
1979 12.90
1980 14.11
1981 17.61
1982 27.56
1983 24.12
1984 25.51
1985 14.94
1986 12.41
1987 18.81
1988 17.42
1989 18.15
1990 21.07
1991 29.04
1992 20.30
1993 22.60
1994 30.86
1995 31.20
1996 31.34
1997 26.35
1998 32.23
1999 27.57
2000 24.59
2001 19.74
2002 23.84
2003 25.72
2004 27.70
2005 39.79
2006 53.22
2007 45.95
2008 44.11
2009 34.20
2010 33.34
2011 32.96
2012 28.50
2013 25.76
2014 26.89
2015 29.55
2016 30.56
2017 30.81
2018 23.56
2019 26.99
2020 37.61

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