North America - Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise exports)

Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise exports) in North America was 33.27 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 33.37 in 2017, while its lowest value was 15.12 in 1987.

Definition: Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region are the sum of merchandise exports from the reporting economy to 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 exports 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 21.63
1961 21.89
1962 22.55
1963 21.97
1964 21.84
1965 20.35
1966 20.56
1967 19.15
1968 18.21
1969 16.67
1970 17.21
1971 17.07
1972 16.18
1973 16.74
1974 20.01
1975 21.56
1976 18.57
1977 17.63
1978 18.34
1979 17.40
1980 20.43
1981 20.73
1982 19.20
1983 16.78
1984 16.57
1985 16.35
1986 15.37
1987 15.12
1988 15.69
1989 15.79
1990 15.91
1991 16.95
1992 19.26
1993 19.79
1994 20.21
1995 19.47
1996 20.35
1997 21.79
1998 21.93
1999 20.83
2000 21.97
2001 22.61
2002 22.93
2003 23.08
2004 23.51
2005 23.60
2006 24.93
2007 25.69
2008 27.07
2009 29.24
2010 30.62
2011 31.43
2012 31.74
2013 32.73
2014 32.66
2015 32.64
2016 32.82
2017 33.37
2018 33.14
2019 32.44
2020 33.27

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: Exports