Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) database contains data on the value of merchandise exports and imports between each country and all its trading partners. Total bilateral and multilateral exports and imports are aggregated at national or regional group level. For each reporting country or group, all the trading partners are listed. The corresponding monetary values of total imports and total exports are then provided as time series for each country/trading partner pair. All exports are valued free on board (f.o.b.). Imports are usually reported cost including insurance and freight (c.i.f.), although a small number of countries report imports f.o.b. Along with data from reporting countries, estimates are provided by partner countries for non-reporting countries or for those that are slow to report. The period for which data are available varies from country to country, but data extends from 1948 to the present. There can be inconsistencies between exports to a partner and the partner's recorded imports from a particular country, i.e. the exports from Country A to B do not always equal the imports of Country B from A. This is due to the different ways countries report their trade, i.e. differences in classification concepts and detail, time of recording, valuation, and coverage, as well as processing errors. This database was first provided by UK Data Service in December 2003.