DIRECTION OF ADVANCED COUNTRIES TRADE

DIRECTION OF ADVANCED COUNTRIES’ TRADE

--Dr. Debesh Bhowmik

In recent years, the direction of world trade did not change fundamentally too much.As per available data from IMF, it is understood that world trade in both exports and imports concentrated in advanced economies. More or less half of the world trade went to the advanced countries. World export trade to advanced economies in 2011 was 11232.51 billion dollar which stepped down to 11042.31 billion dollar in 2012 and import also stepped down from 10337.78 billion dollar to 10171.08 billion dollar but surplus trade balance dwindled. Both exports and imports of the world to the various regions like Emerging and Developing countries, Developing Asia ,Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Hemishere have increased but the deficit trade balance increased in all regions from 2011 to 2012except in Western Hemishere. On the other hand, the advanced countries’ deficit trade balance to all regions have fallen from 2011 to 2012 except in Emerging and Developing countries where it was reverse and  the exports and imports of Advanced economies to Europe ,Western Hemishere and also in advanced economies  rose but those decreased to Emerging and Developing countries, Developing Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa from 2011 to 2012.So, the changes are the deficit trade balances although decreasing is the phenomenon of direction of trade.These changes affected negatively on developing countries and Asia’s trade and it happened due to financial crisis in USA and debt crisis in EU.Advanced countries’ export have fallen marginally from 1702.72 billion dollar in 2011to 1702.21 billion dollar in 2012 to developing countries and emerging countries and imports increased from 2248.32 billion dollar to 2260.25 billion dollar and both exports and imports have fallen to developing Asia during the period,ie, exports from 709.52 billion dollar to 690.26 billion dollar but imports from 759.42 billion dollar to 723.74 billion dollar .The same trends were observed to SubSaharan Africa whose exports from Advanced economies dwindled from 155.89 billion dollar to 146.98 billion dollar and imports from 237.28 billion dollar to 219.26 billion dollar.This is clearly visible in the following table.

	Advanced Economies(USBillion Dollar)
	Export	Import	Export	Import	Export	import
	2010		2011		2012
World	9209.99	9892.73	10677.73	11567.40	10432.03	11363.42
Advanced Economies	3021.80	3882.93	3564.89	4669.66	3597.08	4681.53
Emerging and developing countries	1464.45	1975.90	1702.72	2748.32	1702.21	2260.25
Developing Asia	566.83	605.56	709.52	759.42	690.26	723.74
Europe	325.82	522.63	356.18	694.00	383.61	745.87
SubSaharan Africa	124.93	179.23	155.89	237.28	146.98	219.26
Western Hemishere	539.08	599.42	639.83	730.1	673.35	732.37
	World(US Billion Dollar)
Advanced Economies	9572.25	8890.68	11232.51	10337.78	11042.31	10171.08
Emerging and developing countries	5139.48	6249.22	6281.44	7726.59	6514.94	7381.03
Developing Asia	2369.36	2971.17	2879.34	3505.9	2982.76	3609.26
Europe	970.99	1034.19	1239.76	1319.72	1244.7	1334.19
Middle East and North Africa	677.26	971.46	785.24	1296.36	855.58	1394.12
SubSaharan Africa	261.53	322.72	329.62	429.65	334.88	442.28
Western Hemishere	863.87	960.83	1051.55	1188.9	1102.26	1214.74

 Source-DOT-IMF