South Asia - Food imports (% of merchandise imports)

The value for Food imports (% of merchandise imports) in South Asia was 5.84 as of 2021. As the graph below shows, over the past 59 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 32.74 in 1966 and a minimum value of 5.08 in 2006.

Definition: Food comprises the commodities in SITC sections 0 (food and live animals), 1 (beverages and tobacco), and 4 (animal and vegetable oils and fats) and SITC division 22 (oil seeds, oil nuts, and oil kernels).

Source: World Bank staff estimates through the WITS platform from the Comtrade database maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division.

See also:

Year Value
1962 17.55
1963 16.95
1964 18.63
1965 22.54
1966 32.74
1967 31.45
1968 25.18
1969 22.43
1970 21.98
1971 16.50
1972 13.41
1973 20.61
1974 20.98
1975 31.29
1976 26.73
1977 17.26
1978 15.40
1979 11.72
1980 10.92
1981 10.41
1983 12.82
1984 12.59
1985 11.15
1986 9.62
1987 10.49
1988 8.05
1989 5.50
1990 6.41
1991 5.33
1992 6.47
1993 5.60
1994 6.49
1995 6.67
1996 6.73
1997 7.55
1998 9.81
1999 8.12
2000 6.64
2001 7.29
2002 7.23
2003 7.62
2004 6.11
2005 5.28
2006 5.08
2007 5.69
2008 5.21
2009 6.57
2010 6.26
2011 6.10
2012 5.69
2013 5.86
2014 5.57
2015 7.48
2016 7.44
2017 7.24
2018 5.23
2019 5.53
2020 6.83
2021 5.84

Limitations and Exceptions: Previous editions contained data based on the SITC revision 1. Data for earlier years in previous editions may differ because of the change in methodology. Concordance tables are available to convert data reported in one system to another.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The classification of commodity groups is based on the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) revision 3.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

General Comments: Merchandise import shares may not sum to 100 percent because of unclassified trade.

Classification

Topic: Private Sector & Trade Indicators

Sub-Topic: Imports