Checking Data Availability in UN COMTRADE

As described in The databases UN COMTRADE contains trade flow information (values and quantities) since 1962 based on SITC and HS classifications.

To open the UN COMTRADE catalog:

1. Click on Support Materials menu;
2. Click on the Data Catalog option.

 

Data availability is displayed in a table with countries in rows and years in columns. Therefore, there may be several rows (in most cases) for a given country, meaning that information is available through several nomenclatures and/or versions. In fact, each country usually reports trade information to UNSD using one nomenclature/version. UNSD automatically converts reported information in all previous nomenclatures/versions. For further details see Converting Nomenclatures: Principles.

Each row contains the following information:

• Country: the reporting country full name;
• ISO3: the reporting country code using the UN ISO3 codification;
• Country Code: the reporting country numerical code;
• NomenCode: the code of the nomenclature/version.
• NomenName: the name of the nomenclature/version.

 

From there, columns list years in reverse order from the latest available year and back to 1962 (first year of the database). Use the horizontal and vertical scroll bars to navigate through rows and columns respectively.

For a given country/nomenclature/year, an empty cell indicates missing information. Otherwise, the following codes indicate data availability:

• I: Imports are available
• E: Exports are available
• R: Re-exports 
• M: Re-imports

You may notice that data are never available for a given nomenclature/version prior to a given year (for example no information in H2 prior to 2002). Converting Nomenclatures: Principles explains the rationale for this.

Sorting the UN COMTRADE Catalog

The catalog can be sorted by any column by clicking on the column's label. This is particularly useful for identifying countries for which data is available for a given year: simply click on the year's label.

Saving the UN COMTRADE Catalog

The catalog can be saved as an Excel, csv or tab limited file by clicking on the Download button at the top of the panel. Enter a download Job Name and Job Description. and select the File Format from the dropdown and click on the Download button in the popup window. You can click on Download button to see the download status or Cancel button to continue browsing the UN COMTRADE catalog.

Next: TRAINSCatalog

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