Sources of Trade Information in WITS

WITS provides access to information on External Trade from the United Nations (UN) COMTRADE Data Base, The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) TRAINS Data Base and the World Trade Organization (WTO) IDB and CTS Data Bases.

The data is reported by statistical offices of each country to relevant international organizations. As a rule, missing country/period data means that the reporting country had not reported data for that specific year. No trade information for any given product (or product category) indicates a non-traded product according to the reporting country.

UN COMTRADE:

• Offers the largest country/period coverage of all three databases (from 1962 and virtually all countries).
• Records not only imports but also exports and re-exports.
• But information is not as detailed as in the 2 other databases (HS or SITC nomenclatures for UN COMTRADE, national tariff line level for TRAINS and IDB).
• UN COMTRADE is better fitted for cross-country analysis since information from all countries shares standard international nomenclatures.

TRAINS:

• Contains information at the national tariff level which means more details compared with UN COMTRADE.
• Country/Period coverage (from 1988, less than 100 countries) is smaller than in UN COMTRADE.
• Contains only imported flows.
• TRAINS is best fitted for very detailed country or sector analysis with link to market access information;

IDB:

• Contains information at the national tariff level which means more details compared with UN COMTRADE.
• Country/Period coverage (from 1996, less than 100 countries) is smaller than in UN COMTRADE.
• Contains only imported flows.
• IDB is best fitted for very detailed country or sector analysis with link to market access information;

Next: Imports, Exports and Mirror Data with UN COMTRADE

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The World Bank, 2010