Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise exports)
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.
Description: The map below shows how Merchandise exports to low- and middle-income economies outside region (% of total merchandise exports) varies by country. The shade of the country corresponds to the magnitude of the indicator. The darker the shade, the higher the value. The country with the highest value in the world is Guinea-Bissau, with a value of 89.52. The country with the lowest value in the world is Lesotho, with a value of 0.15.
Source: World Bank staff estimates based data from International Monetary Fund's Direction of Trade database.
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