List of countries by trade-to-GDP ratio

This is a list of countries by trade-to-GDP ratio, i.e. the sum of exports and imports of goods and services, divided by gross domestic product, expressed as a percentage, based on the data published by World Bank. The list includes sovereign states and self-governing dependent territories based upon the ISO standard ISO 3166-1.

Imports of goods and services represent the value of all goods and other market services received from the rest of the world. Exports of goods and services represent the value of all goods and other market services provided to the rest of the world. They include the value of merchandise, freight, insurance, transport, travel, royalties, license fees, and other services, such as communication, construction, financial, information, business, personal, and government services. They exclude compensation of employees and investment income (formerly called factor services) and transfer payments. The trade-to-GDP ratio is also known as the "trade openness index".

Definition

The trade-to-GDP ratio is an indicator of the relative importance of international trade in the economy of a country. It is calculated by dividing the aggregate value of imports and exports over a period by the gross domestic product for the same period. Although called a ratio, it is usually expressed as a percentage. It is used as a measure of the openness of a country to international trade and so may also be called the trade openness ratio. It may be seen as an indicator of the degree of globalisation of an economy.

Other factors aside, the trade-to-GDP ratio tends to be low in countries with large economies and large populations such as Japan and the United States and to have a higher value in small economies. Singapore has the highest trade-to-GDP ratio of any country; between 2008 and 2011 it averaged about 400%. For economies such as Armenia the trade to GDP ratio is not as high as for Singapore, but at the same time it is not as low as for the developed countries such as USA and Japan. Taking into account the last available data for Armenia, trade openness is approximately 78% for 2021.

For trade-to-GDP ratio, the provided data for Armenia is from 1990 to 2021. The average value for Armenia during that period was 77.92% with a minimum of 54.54% in 2008 and a maximum of 112.43% in 1994. For comparison, the world average in 2021 based on 129 countries is 90.86%. See the global rankings for that indicator or use the country comparator to compare trends over time. Worldwide trade-to-GDP ratio rose from just over 20% in 1995 to about 30% in 2014.

List of countries by trade-to-GDP ratio

The following table provides information on exports and imports of goods and services, based on the data published by World Bank, trade openness index, calculated as their sum, and the ratio between exports and imports. Since GDP is only the value added domestically, it may happen that small countries export more than is produced in the country and/or import more than is consumed in the country and the external trade rate is thus over 100%.

Sorting is alphabetical by country code, according to ISO 3166-1 alpha-3.