International Trade and Business Resource Guide: Statistics

The IMF publishes a range of time series data on IMF lending, exchange rates, and other economic and financial indicators. It includes the series:

International Financial Statistics (IFS)
Balance of Payments Statistics (BOP)
Direction of Trade Statistics (DOT)
Government Finance Statistics (GFS)

The database contains some time series data as far back as 1948.

The statistics section of the OECD iLibrary allows users to search within various data sets, such as the OECD Statistics on International Trade in Service, or to choose amongst pre-selected Key Tables (i.e. Trade: Key Tables from OECD.) Note: The IEA datasets are not available.

Offers tips on navigating OECD iLibrary, and provides several videos presenting facts taken from the content of the iLibrary.

This yearbook from the Institute for Management Development delivers competitiveness profiles of countries, and comparative rankings based on economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure. The accompanying website (see the Reference Desk for access) allows the user to generate up to date performance rankings.

The 'Economics' tab leads to several categories of economic data, which include indicators for Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, and the UK.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis, under the U.S. Department of Commerce, provides current and historic reports on balance of payments, trade in goods and services, foreign direct investment in the United States, and U.S. direct investment abroad.

Capital flows: annual and quarterly tables, 1994:I-2011: I.

Capital flows: annual and quarterly tables, 1994:I-2011: I.

The Foreign Trade Division of the U.S. Census Bureau collects statistics on foreign trade.

The IMF publishes a range of time series data on IMF lending, exchange rates and other economic and financial indicators.

"The International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO (ITC) is the focal point in the United Nations system for technical cooperation with developing countries in trade promotion." The following three links are subsections of the ITC site.

Imports/exports by product group and country, and by country and product group.

U.S. national trade data (U.S. merchandise exports, imports, trade balances), and State export data (State and regional exports of merchandise).

The United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database provides "free access to detailed global trade data."

UNCTADstat "provides free access to comprehensive statistical time series and indicators essential for the analysis of world trade, development, and interrelated issues in the areas of finance, technology, investment and durable development."

"The WTO provides quantitative information in relation to economic and trade policy issues. Its data-bases and publications provide access to data on trade flows, tariffs, non-tariff measures (NTMs) and trade in value added."