Skip to content

In the Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS), why does summing up a country’s exports to (imports from) its partners not equal a country’s exports to (imports from) the world? How is a country’s total exports to (total imports from) the world calculated?

← Methodology
A country’s exports to (imports from) the world is calculated from the sum of aggregates and are not derived from summing up individual countries’ data.  A country’s exports to (imports from) the world series is derived by adding up the following aggregates:

Advanced Economies
Emerging and Developing Countries
Other Countries not included elsewhere
Countries and Areas Not Specified
Special Categories

Moreover, if you add up a country’s exports to (imports from) data to individual countries, it may not equal the regional aggregate because there are some countries that are added into the regional aggregate, but we do not show the data for. Therefore, you will not be able to add the individual countries and see that it equals the regional aggregate total.  As a suggestion, we recommend the use of the aggregates to get the world total and not summing up the individual countries.

DOTS dataset can be found here.

Feedback and Knowledge Base

(thinking…)