IBRD only - 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 IBRD only was 22.37 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 22.86 in 2019, while its lowest value was 5.19 in 1961.

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 5.60
1961 5.19
1962 5.70
1963 5.95
1964 6.06
1965 5.97
1966 6.68
1967 5.82
1968 5.72
1969 6.18
1970 6.37
1971 6.48
1972 6.72
1973 7.03
1974 9.45
1975 8.63
1976 9.43
1977 9.47
1978 9.28
1979 10.76
1980 11.63
1981 9.89
1982 10.43
1983 11.07
1984 11.25
1985 11.50
1986 8.82
1987 9.76
1988 9.23
1989 9.29
1990 8.59
1991 6.65
1992 8.00
1993 8.43
1994 7.85
1995 8.17
1996 9.18
1997 9.26
1998 9.15
1999 9.66
2000 10.16
2001 11.09
2002 11.44
2003 12.62
2004 13.60
2005 14.73
2006 16.34
2007 17.53
2008 19.38
2009 19.27
2010 20.00
2011 21.15
2012 21.65
2013 21.53
2014 22.15
2015 21.45
2016 21.07
2017 22.01
2018 22.63
2019 22.86
2020 22.37

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