AREAER Online

The Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions (AREAER) database tracks exchange and trade arrangements for all 187 IMF member countries since 1950.

This unique database is updated yearly based mostly on information from country authorities. The database also provides information on different types of capital controls used by countries, restrictions on current international payments and transfers, arrangements for payments and receipts, procedures for resident and nonresident accounts, exchange rate arrangements, and the operation of foreign exchange markets. It also includes measures implemented in the financial sector, including prudential measures.

AREAER Database can be browsed/searched in one of the following ways:

• Full Yearly Report: to view an entire annual report by selecting a year.
• Country Report: to view an individual country report via selection of country and year.
• Data Query: to generate a query through multiple selections of country, year and category parameters combined with a powerful keyword search option.

The database is bank-wide accessible at: www.imfareaer.org

Balance of Payments Statistics (BOPS)

The IMF Balance of Payments Statistics contains over 100,000 quarterly and annual time series data. The data include aggregate as well as detailed information in the form of analytical and standard component presentations for countries. Additional documentation is included with descriptions of methodologies, compilation practices, and data sources used by individual member countries in compiling their balance of payments and international investment position statistics. In addition, the BOPS Online service contains data as reported by the balance of payments correspondents to the IMF Statistics Department. The IMF BOPS is updated once a month.

Composed of international economic transactions data, BOPS delivers vital statistical information that covers:

• total goods, services, factor income, and current transfers an economy receives from or provides to the rest of the world
• capital transfers and changes in each economy’s external financial claims and liabilities
• tables featuring area and world totals of balance of payments components and aggregates.

Access URL: http://data.imf.org/?sk=7A51304B-6426-40C0-83DD-CA473CA1FD52

COMTRADE

The United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) contains detailed imports and exports statistics reported by statistical authorities of close to 200 countries or areas. It concerns annual trade data from 1962 to the most recent year. UN Comtrade is considered the most comprehensive trade database available with more than 1 billion records. A typical record is – for instance – the exports of cars from Germany to the United States in 2004 in terms of value (US dollars), weight and supplementary quantity (number of cars). The database is continuously updated. Whenever trade data are received from the national authorities, they are standardized by the UN Statistics Division and then added to UN Comtrade.

Access URL: http://comtrade.un.org/

Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS)

Provides data on the value of merchandise exports and imports between each country and all its trading partners. The database includes: total bilateral and multilateral exports and imports aggregated at national or regional group level, data for the most recent six quarters and the latest year for 169 countries, and ten quarters and five years for the world and area tables. The user interface includes four views for browsing the database: a table view corresponding to the tables contained within the Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook; an economic concept view that provides access to similar concepts across countries, to the extent that they exist; a cross-country matrix view; and a search mechanism based on the structure of the time series key.

Access URL: http://data.imf.org/?sk=9D6028D4-F14A-464C-A2F2-59B2CD424B85

Eurostat

Provides free statistical data about the EU countries under the following themes:

• General and Regional Statistics
• Economy and Finance
• Population and Social Conditions
• Industry, Trade and Services
• Africulture, Forestry and Fisheries
• External Trade
• Transport
• Environment and Energy
• Science and Technology

Access URL: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

Government Finance Statistics (GFS)

Contains statistical data on government financial operations for 145 IMF member countries. Where reported, the database contains time series from 1990 onwards using the Government Finance Statistics Manual, 2001 (GFSM 2001) framework. The statistics, issued quarterly, are updated as new data are received and time series become available. These time series present combined statistics on revenue, expenses, transactions in nonfinancial assets and financial assets and liabilities as well as for stocks of assets and liabilities of general government and its subsectors.

Access URL: http://data.imf.org/?sk=a0867067-d23c-4ebc-ad23-d3b015045405

International Financial Statistics (IFS)

IFS Online include current data on exchange rates, international liquidity, international interest rates, prices, national accounts, and international transactions (including balance of payments and international investment positions). The online IFS database contains:

• approximately 32,000 time series covering over 200 countries and areas including all series appearing on the IFS Country Pages
• deep time series ranging from 1950s for many IMF member countries
• exchange rate series for all IMF member countries, plus selected other areas
• selected aggregates of key variables in IFS World Tables.

Access URL: http://data.imf.org/?sk=5dabaff2-c5ad-4d27-a175-1253419c02d1

Market Analysis Tools

The International Trade Centre has developed five web portals, namely: Trade Map, Market Access Map, Investment Map, Trade Competitiveness Map and Product Map to enhance the transparency of global trade and market access and to help users in their market analyses.

These easy-to-navigate web-based analytical interactive tools offer detailed, up-to-date and relevant trade and market access data on predefined products in virtually all countries, especially developing ones. Business and investment information is also available for many markets.

Users can carry out a host of analytical tasks, ranging from market assessment to the prioritizing of sectors for trade promotion. They can readily compare countries’ trade performances, prepare for trade talks by analyzing national tariffs or analyze foreign direct investment flows to prepare investment attraction initiatives.

To get your free ID and password, please register at: http://mas-admintools.intracen.org/accounts/Registration.aspx

OECD Statistics

OECD.Stat includes data and metadata for OECD countries and selected non-member economies. OECD.Stat enables users to search for and extract data from across many databases under different themes such as agriculture and fisheries, development, economic projections, education and training, energy, environment, finance, globalisation, health, national accounts, productivity, regional statistics, social and welfare, etc.

Access URL: http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?r=274689

TRAINS

Provides online access to indicators of Trade Control Measures (Tariff, Para-tariff and Non-tariff measures), as well as imports by suppliers at each Harmonized System 6-digit level for over 150 countries. It also provides country notes of trade regimes for some 40 developing countries, describing market access conditions according to the UNCTAD Coding System of Trade Control Measures.

Access to TRAINS is provided through WITS—An online application developed by the World Bank in collaboration with UNCTAD, ITC, UNSD, and WTO.

To start WITS, users are required to register their individual accounts freely at: http://wits.worldbank.org/wits