UN Comtrade (merchandise trade statistics)
UN Comtrade provides international merchandise trade statistics for over 140 countries from 1962 to 2010.
Note that for batch downloading, and some other features, it is necessary to enter an EUI address on the Comtrade site (see instructions below).
UN Comtrade contains detailed import and export statistics reported by the statistical agencies of almost 200 countries. The database presents annual trade data from from national statistics agencies, standardised by the UN Statistics Division.
Data is from 1962 to 2010, depending on trade category.
The UN Comtrade user guide is available online .
This UN page provides full details of UN Comtrade concepts and definitions.
For access to data, and batch downloads, it is necessary to enter an EUI address on the Comtrade site.
Open UN Comtrade – on an EUI desktop – via this EUI Catalogue record .
At the 'EUI user box' (mid-right of the page) enter an EUI e-mail address at 'Account Info.'
Go to 'Data Query' in the top-bar and select 'Express Selection'.
Here follows an example of a data selection (use the online manual for variable definitions):
Populate HS (eg.) 'as reported',
Use the blue 'Lookup' link at right to populate the 'Commodity' box (eg.) 'AG6',
For Code, enter (eg.) '156' for China,
For Partner, use 'Lookup' for a country/countries, enter (eg.) 40 for Austria,
Use the Lookup link again for the 'Years' field, enter (eg.) 2005 to 2009,
Press 'Add' and then 'Apply & Close',
Click (eg.) both 'import' and 'export',
Click 'submit query'.
A 'terms & conditions' page will then open,
Tick the box at the end and submit.
On the next page click 'direct download',
An Excel will open.
The 'Batch' function will only be necessary if there is a retrieval of more than 150,000 cells.
If it is necessary to submit a batch query, an e-mail will be sent from the system (only to an eui.eu account) with a link to the data in Excel format.
Further information about the batch download function are on this UNstats page .
See also, the EUI Library pages on UNdata and UN commodity data .
Contact: Thomas Bourke at econlibrary@eui.eu