Thailand - 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 Thailand was 32.81 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 35.53 in 2018, while its lowest value was 5.19 in 1991.

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
1960 6.80
1961 15.18
1962 10.55
1963 15.34
1964 17.20
1965 10.27
1966 17.41
1967 18.14
1968 13.66
1969 12.35
1970 12.59
1971 12.12
1972 15.76
1973 15.87
1974 11.70
1975 10.15
1976 13.25
1977 15.60
1978 10.06
1979 10.90
1980 11.88
1981 10.02
1982 13.36
1983 9.81
1984 8.75
1985 10.75
1986 9.14
1987 8.42
1988 7.42
1989 7.50
1990 5.74
1991 5.19
1992 6.05
1993 6.41
1994 8.93
1995 9.64
1996 11.76
1997 13.00
1998 11.96
1999 13.16
2000 14.99
2001 15.79
2002 17.05
2003 20.66
2004 22.36
2005 23.55
2006 23.63
2007 24.86
2008 26.06
2009 26.99
2010 29.45
2011 31.03
2012 31.81
2013 33.12
2014 32.70
2015 32.86
2016 32.77
2017 34.28
2018 35.53
2019 33.85
2020 32.81

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