It is no question that international trade has been an engine for development for centuries. The movement of goods or provision of services between countries and continents have allowed not just the exchange of commodities, but of culture and ideas as well.
Trade practitioners in government, academia, research institutes and businesses will be pleased to know that the Statistics Division of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Department of Economic and Social Affairs has developed a new and enhanced to serve as an indispensable tool in all aspects of the study of international trade.
The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade details imports and exports statistics in goods and services reported by the statistical authorities of close to 200 countries/areas since 1962. It is considered the most comprehensive online trade database available globally, with tens of billions of data points, representing more than 99 per cent of the world¡¯s merchandise trade.
Launched worldwide today, the new Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade Database boasts of state-of-the-art features such as a more intuitive design, new data with more parameters, more powerful application programming interface (API) options and bulk download and data delivery, to name a few.
The revamped platform uses more interactive visualization features, enabling users to view the data without requiring extensive data skills. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade has been collecting these visualizations developed by users and they are now accessible through . Another feature, , provides real-time analytics of recently released datasets and the data that users are looking for on Comtrade.
As the premier Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ agency dealing with trade, investment and development issues, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵCTAD) is one of the primary users, and beneficiaries, of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade Database. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵCTAD uses the data to construct various information products disseminated online in the . They also use it for economic analysis and policy formulation, shared through Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵCTAD¡¯s s, in policy briefs, research papers, and other publications. The data play a prominent role in studies on market access and market potential. Combining Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade data with labor statistics has also enabled Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵCTAD to develop a set of indicators on gender and trade, which will soon be launched on Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵCTADstat.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is another Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ agency that relies on Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade data to get its work done. FAO¡¯s mandate is to improve nutrition, increase agricultural productivity, raise rural populations¡¯ living standards, and contribute to global economic growth. Among the key priorities to achieve this goal is the urgent need to eliminate hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. In these efforts, FAO plays a crucial role in providing up-to-date, reliable, and actionable data, including agrifood trade, on the state of food security and nutrition around the world to help guide policies and track progress toward these goals. The agricultural and food trade data found at comes from Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade.
Finally, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade has been vital in assessing the impact of conflict and crises in the world. Since the beginning of 2000, international trade has fueled the emergence of global value chains ¨C where countries depend on each other for primary, intermediate, and manufactured goods. With Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade monthly data, users are able to monitor and measure the movement of goods ¨C even, and especially, during challenging times ¨C helping to predict consumption and production patterns across the globe.
Sign-up as a user and access Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Comtrade data at your fingertips:
Photo: Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Photo/Albert Gonz¨¢lez Farran