OECD members - 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 OECD members was 0.430 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 60 years was 0.511 in 2013, while its lowest value was 0.029 in 1960.

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
1960 0.029
1961 0.035
1962 0.041
1963 0.048
1964 0.065
1965 0.073
1966 0.093
1967 0.076
1968 0.081
1969 0.086
1970 0.082
1971 0.095
1972 0.098
1973 0.090
1974 0.109
1975 0.107
1976 0.103
1977 0.108
1978 0.086
1979 0.077
1980 0.113
1981 0.171
1982 0.161
1983 0.156
1984 0.142
1985 0.108
1986 0.085
1987 0.094
1988 0.081
1989 0.083
1990 0.077
1991 0.096
1992 0.131
1993 0.159
1994 0.175
1995 0.211
1996 0.230
1997 0.246
1998 0.217
1999 0.176
2000 0.190
2001 0.207
2002 0.219
2003 0.218
2004 0.238
2005 0.280
2006 0.303
2007 0.350
2008 0.408
2009 0.374
2010 0.424
2011 0.461
2012 0.497
2013 0.511
2014 0.478
2015 0.439
2016 0.401
2017 0.420
2018 0.420
2019 0.437
2020 0.430

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