Zimbabwe - 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 Zimbabwe was 55.09 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 56 years was 90.01 in 2017, while its lowest value was 8.72 in 2001.

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
1964 41.01
1965 49.44
1966 50.87
1981 35.22
1982 32.48
1983 31.66
1984 32.40
1985 25.69
1986 29.11
1987 28.07
1988 29.37
1989 29.99
1990 31.66
1991 29.98
1992 32.64
1993 35.28
1994 32.77
1995 31.42
1996 31.04
1997 34.82
1998 34.30
1999 28.93
2000 17.12
2001 8.72
2002 33.05
2003 28.34
2004 43.77
2005 58.43
2006 66.62
2007 67.39
2008 64.14
2009 58.35
2010 56.78
2011 73.82
2012 79.36
2013 81.81
2014 71.90
2015 77.15
2016 79.75
2017 90.01
2018 75.72
2019 74.10
2020 55.09

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