Upper middle income - 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 Upper middle income was 20.97 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 21.26 in 2019, while its lowest value was 2.86 in 1960.

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 2.86
1961 3.37
1962 3.36
1963 3.82
1964 4.03
1965 4.30
1966 4.54
1967 4.16
1968 4.42
1969 4.78
1970 4.89
1971 5.16
1972 5.57
1973 6.05
1974 8.83
1975 8.74
1976 10.68
1977 10.44
1978 10.27
1979 11.46
1980 12.26
1981 9.83
1982 10.97
1983 12.00
1984 12.11
1985 11.88
1986 8.19
1987 9.28
1988 8.57
1989 8.19
1990 7.48
1991 5.23
1992 6.40
1993 7.11
1994 6.02
1995 6.37
1996 7.21
1997 7.34
1998 7.15
1999 7.35
2000 8.43
2001 9.49
2002 9.69
2003 10.91
2004 12.32
2005 13.53
2006 14.58
2007 15.78
2008 17.67
2009 17.42
2010 18.43
2011 19.38
2012 19.80
2013 19.88
2014 20.29
2015 19.31
2016 18.93
2017 19.77
2018 20.64
2019 21.26
2020 20.97

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