Lao PDR - 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 Lao PDR was 89.51 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 92.55 in 2019, while its lowest value was 13.74 in 1960.

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 13.74
1961 40.36
1962 49.59
1963 40.28
1964 38.17
1965 36.81
1967 42.32
1968 33.05
1969 36.52
1970 31.87
1971 35.25
1972 55.09
1973 47.97
1974 49.44
1981 42.00
1982 48.37
1983 49.44
1984 47.44
1985 40.48
1986 55.10
1987 55.27
1988 59.97
1989 60.72
1990 71.62
1991 65.26
1992 70.29
1993 47.60
1994 55.95
1995 57.07
1996 52.49
1997 89.95
1998 79.96
1999 81.83
2000 79.65
2001 83.06
2002 81.58
2003 84.59
2004 80.10
2005 84.05
2006 87.97
2007 85.67
2008 86.48
2009 84.54
2010 87.01
2011 84.10
2012 86.09
2013 89.07
2014 87.64
2015 88.16
2016 90.82
2017 90.65
2018 89.34
2019 92.55
2020 89.51

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