Zambia - 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 Zambia was 41.69 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 56 years was 69.25 in 2000, while its lowest value was 9.40 in 1978.

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 62.11
1965 55.25
1966 45.40
1967 36.99
1968 35.71
1969 36.01
1970 29.69
1971 26.46
1972 22.03
1973 20.13
1974 12.68
1975 9.42
1976 10.97
1977 10.22
1978 9.40
1979 14.75
1980 18.55
1981 20.83
1982 21.35
1983 21.35
1984 29.09
1985 25.26
1986 22.31
1987 28.48
1988 24.00
1989 30.71
1990 29.83
1991 30.50
1992 36.06
1993 52.22
1994 49.49
1995 44.41
1996 50.59
1997 55.41
1998 52.41
1999 55.61
2000 69.25
2001 67.86
2002 67.23
2003 67.59
2004 57.09
2005 58.86
2006 59.66
2007 58.85
2008 60.64
2009 60.10
2010 63.04
2011 59.38
2012 55.31
2013 58.87
2014 58.83
2015 51.68
2016 53.47
2017 56.23
2018 50.10
2019 41.88
2020 41.69

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