IDA only - 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 IDA only was 29.30 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 29.30 in 2020, while its lowest value was 6.48 in 1961.

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
1960 6.58
1961 6.48
1962 7.07
1963 8.19
1964 11.87
1965 12.04
1966 11.94
1967 11.82
1968 13.48
1969 13.03
1970 12.75
1971 12.39
1972 12.05
1973 12.49
1974 11.66
1975 10.33
1976 9.75
1977 9.55
1978 9.64
1979 10.72
1980 12.50
1981 13.62
1982 14.97
1983 14.95
1984 16.03
1985 14.58
1986 10.99
1987 11.57
1988 10.76
1989 12.92
1990 12.85
1991 12.10
1992 14.10
1993 16.13
1994 16.64
1995 18.62
1996 20.33
1997 20.52
1998 19.97
1999 20.31
2000 20.50
2001 19.55
2002 20.45
2003 21.49
2004 25.10
2005 25.92
2006 24.83
2007 20.96
2008 20.28
2009 19.94
2010 20.01
2011 23.83
2012 24.79
2013 25.60
2014 25.97
2015 25.32
2016 26.57
2017 27.01
2018 28.35
2019 28.18
2020 29.30

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