I get a lot of email each day, and every morning I mass select and delete 95% of it. But last week one email caught my attention. The subject line was “Maps reveal each country’s top import and export.”
The email highlighted a new study from BusinessFinancing.co.uk. The group’s data scientist pulled import/export data for every country from the following source: CEPII – BACI: International Trade Database at the Product-Level. Then he isolated the top imports and exports in 2019 by country.
I love informative graphics, and the maps the group created are fascinating. I share the graphic of the exports below (with permission).
The graphic is linked to the source, where you can zoom in on details like this:
Energy is the most common export globally, and is also intricately linked to the top export of several additional countries. For example, aluminum is the top export in Iceland, but that’s because it is an energy-intensive metal to produce, and Iceland has cheap, renewable energy.
Petroleum is the top export in 59 countries, including the U.S. and Canada. Guyana’s top export is closely related — drilling platforms.
But petroleum is an even more common import. A total of 128 countries — including the U.S. and Mexico — list petroleum as the top import. The group calculated that petroleum accounts for 1.3% of total global gross domestic product (GDP).
For a deeper dive into the numbers — including regional breakdowns — see Every Country’s Top Export and Import.
