Welcome
This guide provides a starting point for researchers using numeric data for projects involving international trade.
Trade Resources
UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) (Harvard Login)
Annual data by commodity and trade partner for over 130 countries for SITC 1, 4 and 5-digit and 1 or 6-digit Harmonised System (HS-1). For many countries the data coverage starts in 1962. Also contains trade in services from 2000 onward broken down by EBOPS category and partner country on an annual basis. Comtrade Premium access requires individual account registration with a current Harvard email.
OECD iLibrary (Harvard Login)
Trade databases within OECD iLibrary include ITCS International Trade by Commodity, Quarterly International Trade, and STAN Bilateral Trade. Basic country-level trade data is also available in the Economic Outlook database and the Main Economic Indicators database.
World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS)
WITS software provides access to international merchandise trade, tariff and non-tariff measures data. Browse the Country profile section to obtain countries exports, imports and tariff statistics along with relevant development data. Register and login to perform custom analysis.
Access2Markets - European Commission
Product-by-product information on tariffs & taxes, customs procedures, rules of origin, trade barriers, product requirements, statistics for all EU countries and for more than 120 export markets around the world.
Atlas of Economic Complexity - Growth Lab at Harvard University
An award-winning data visualization tool that allows people to explore global trade flows across markets, track these dynamics over time and discover new growth opportunities for every country. The trade data used is also available to download.
CEPII-BACI
Provides disaggregated data on bilateral trade flows for more than 5000 products and 200 countries. The database is built from data directly reported by each country to the United Nations Statistical Division (Comtrade).
Correlates of War Project - International Trade, 1870-2014
Tracks total national trade and bilateral trade flows between states.
Direction of Trade Statistics - International Monetary Fund
Time series data from 1940-present detailing the value of merchandise exports and imports between each country and all its trading partners. Includes total bilateral and multilateral exports and imports aggregated at national or regional group levels. Also available from the UK Data Service.
Eurostat Trade Data
Provides external EU trade data as well as trade between members of the EU. Data is available for long term and short term indicators.
FAOSTAT Statistics Database - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
This is an on-line and multilingual (English, French, Spanish) database containing over 1 million time-series records covering international statistics in the areas of Production, Trade, Food Balance Sheets, Food Aid Shipments, Fertilizers and Pesticides, Land Use and Irrigation, Forest Products, Fishery Products, Population, Agricultural Machinery and Agricultural Production.
Foreign Trade Statistics - US Census Bureau
Statistics available on this site include trade highlights, product trade data, country data, state export data, and an historical series (1960-present).
International Economics Accounts - Bureau of Economic Analysis
Links to tables of economic data, including US Trade in Goods and Services and US International Transactions.
International Trade Administration - US Department of Commerce
Contains international, state and some metropolitan-area level trade data. Data is also available at the industry level.
International Trade and Tariff Data - World Trade Organization
Provides trade, tariff and services profiles and times series data for merchandise trade (by region and selected economies), commercial services trade (by region and selected economies), and regional integration arrangements. It also provides access to WTO annual publications and interactive statistics databases and maps.
Monthly Bulletin of Statistics - United Nations
Provides total imports and exports for individual countries in US dollars and quantity indexes. Monthly, quarterly and annual data. Historical data is available in print.
Provides U.S. export and import information on more than 18,000 commodities presented in the Harmonized Tariff Classification System for current month and previous month; cumulative year to date, current year and prior year; and annual two year and historical data.