South Africa - Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise exports)

Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise exports) in South Africa was 21.00 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 21.73 in 2013, while its lowest value was 0.74 in 1967.

Definition: Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region are the sum of merchandise exports from the reporting economy to 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 exports 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 3.57
1961 2.52
1962 2.22
1963 1.92
1964 0.91
1965 0.97
1966 0.96
1967 0.74
1968 0.91
1969 1.29
1970 1.00
1971 0.92
1972 0.95
1973 2.42
1974 2.55
1975 2.31
1976 3.03
1977 4.80
1978 2.28
1979 2.33
1980 2.86
1981 2.17
1982 2.01
1983 1.40
1984 1.77
1985 2.03
1986 2.73
1987 3.38
1988 3.74
1989 4.78
1990 3.72
1991 3.38
1992 2.89
1993 4.41
1994 8.31
1995 8.55
1996 10.21
1997 10.67
1998 6.49
1999 8.21
2000 9.70
2001 7.52
2002 7.40
2003 8.30
2004 8.19
2005 10.04
2006 11.78
2007 14.97
2008 15.69
2009 21.11
2010 18.27
2011 20.63
2012 20.66
2013 21.73
2014 19.40
2015 18.97
2016 19.32
2017 20.77
2018 21.10
2019 21.48
2020 21.00

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: Exports