Data and Statistics
Last Updated: July 31, 2007
Direction of Trade Statistics:
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Composition of country, world, and area pages
Country pages include lines for all partner countries that have been reported, estimated, or extrapolated. Where relevant, these pages also include lines for country or area data not specified and for “special categories.” Trade included under “special categories” may cover military trade, transactions in free zones, or transactions in aircraft or ships. These data have not been designated to a partner country by the trade statistics compilers, nor have they been included by item in the reported data as an area not specified.
Country pages also include memorandum item lines for the European Union (EU), Oil Exporting Countries, and Non-Oil Developing Countries. Data in these memorandum lines show trade by all members of the group with the respective country. Similarly these memorandum lines appear on the area and world pages. The memorandum line represents trade by all individual members of the group. For example, the EU line on the world page represents trade by all EU members with the world, including trade among members. It does not present the EU data as if the EU was a single country. Users interested in such statistics would need to subtract intra-EU trade.
Summary tables for the world and areas are calculated from the data shown on the country page. They show the trade by a group of countries to and from the individual countries listed in the table. This is analogous to stacking all the pages for the individual countries in an area and adding vertically to yield an aggregate table on the top of the stack.
While the country pages show the most important trading partners for each individual country, the world and area totals for each country’s trade include trade not explicitly shown or not specified by partner countries. For comparison, total export and import data are also shown as given in terms of U.S. dollars in the world trade tables in IFS for countries that report trade statistics to the Fund.
When trade data are reported from a country’s own records (both as world aggregates and by trading partner), the sums of exports to and of imports from all partner countries, including trade with unspecified partners, would, in principle, be identical with the aggregates reported independently for total exports and imports, respectively. In practice, however, discrepancies may arise—for example, when adjustments and/or revisions are applied to aggregates but are not carried through to individual partner data.
The DOT Online browser contains the cross country matrix view and economic concept view in addition to country tables and world and area tables view.