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UN Comtrade Introduction: Basic Selection

Step 1

At the opening page, click the Data Query tab and choose Basic Selection from the drop-down links.

 

 

 

Step 3

Click the Reporters tab in order to select the country that is reporting the trade of its commodity.  Countries may be added by double-clicking on the name of the country, or by single-clicking on the name and then choosing Add at the bottom of the screen.

Step 5

Select the Years tab in order to choose the time frame for the trade of the selected commodity.  UN COMTRADE has coverage from 1962 through 2006; individual years may be selected by double-clicking on them or by single-clicking and choosing the Add button at the bottom of the screen.  There is also an option for All years.

Step 7

Once all of the steps to building your search have been completed, select Submit Query at the bottom of the screen.

UN Comtrade help on Basic Selection.

Step 2

Under the commodities tab, enter the appropriate code and select the classification from the drop down menu.

Click Search to find subdivisions of the commodity.  To see further subdivisions, click the + symbol.  In order to add these commodities to the search, select them by checking the boxes adjacent to the category, and then choose Add at the bottom of the search box.  The commodities you selected will appear in the "Selected Items" box on the right of the screen.

Step 4

Select the Partners tab in order to choose the partner country with which the previously selected reporter country is trading the commodity.

Notice that World is an option as a partner, in addition to All.  Partner countries may be added by double-clicking the name of the country or by single-clicking the name and selecting Add, just as in the reporter country selection.

Step 6

(Optional): If you have the need to filter your search results, select the Others tab.  Here, you can limit the results to

  • exclude or parse out re-export data
  • filter the trade value in relation to a specific, predetermined number
  • select the sort order of the data results (example: Year; Flow; Rep.; Comm; Ptnr), or
  • select an aggregation option to keep the quantity unit differences (recommended) or to ignore the differences.