Research Resources for International Trade
Free Websites Offering Current Statistical Information
Jul 21, 2009
Finding statistics on the world’s richest countries is challenging.
Researchers striving to stay up to date with the latest economic comparisons by trading nation face an even more daunting task.
Online searchers can find the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics per country at the World Economic Outlook Database maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF updates GDP numbers for individual countries throughout the year.
Research Resources for World Trade Commodities
Researchers looking for trade data on commodities should peruse the International Trade by Commodity Statistics (ITCS) database on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) website.
From the left hand navigation panel on the OECD home page, users click on Statistics under the Find menu. Another click on ‘OECD.Stat.Extracts’ displays a free online database to search for information on OECD countries and select non-member nations. The left-hand menu titled International Trade and Balance of Payments has a submenu named International Trade by Commodity Statistics. That submenu enables users to find the most current trade statistics by commodity and trade nation.
Research Resources for Exports and Imports
Recently refurbished, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook includes a dropdown menu that enables users to immediately choose any country from a sorted list of nations. The economy information panel on each nation’s page includes a labeled set of trade information narratives including export and import trade statistics for the selected country. A country’s highest-value exports are listed, as are its most-valued imports. Both export and import narratives include links to respective rankings of countries by exports and imports.
Research Resources for Trade Partner Information
The CIA World Factbook displays listings for a country’s top export and import partners in rank order starting with the most important. Typically, the percent dollar value for each top trade partner’s exports or imports in a specified year is shown.
Research Resources for Economic Indicators by Country
The CIA World Factbook also presents key metrics for gauging a country’s economic health. These include an economy’s bank rate, inflation rate, unemployment rate, foreign direct investment, GDP, GDP per capita and other indicators. Again, each economic factor that the CIA World Factbook profiles includes an international ranking by country.
US Trade Statistics by Country and Commodity
The US Census Bureau provides the most recent annual statistics on American foreign trade with all trade partner countries. Users must click on Statistics under the Foreign Trade Statistics header, and then choose Country/Product Trade Data. The End-Use categories list links to access American imports and exports for each trade partner country. Statistics are reported by commodity categories, each of which is prefixed by a 5-digit end-use code (e.g. 42100 Gem Diamonds).
Canadian Trade Statistics by Country and Commodity
Industry Canada provides a free online database tool that instantly provides an informative set of graphs and reports on Canadian exports and imports. For example, users can specify that they want a report that details total exports from Canada or an individual Canadian province, as well as export percentages for each Canadian province and territory. Researchers can choose a specific reporting year, the latest 5 or 10 years or 24 months, or year to date versus the prior year. The online database also enables users to choose the exports or imports for all countries, Canada’s top 10 trading partners or individual country.
Visitors can easily choose a customized report or graph on Canada’s top 25 exported or imported products for a specified time period and trading partner by clicking on a menu item under Product Search. Alternatively, users can specify a specific trade commodity by entering the first 4 or 6 digits from a tariff item’s Harmonized System code.
In less than a minute, researchers can retrieve a customized snapshot on the latest developments in Canadian trade. Source data is provided by Statistics Canada and the US Department of Commerce.
Summary of Trade Research Resources
Whether researching sources for an academic dissertation or a detailed business plan, users can save time and effort by visiting the international trade resources mentioned in this article. They are summarized below in alphabetical order.
- CIA World Factbook website for economic and trade indicators
- IMF World Economic Outlook Database for GDP numbers
- Industry Canada Trade Data Online (TDO)
- OECD’s International Trade by Commodity Statistics (ITCS) database
- US Census Bureau Foreign Trade Statistics.
Readers are encouraged to Google the above terms, and to bookmark this article for future reference.
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