The WTO released online on 29 October 2015 new editions of its key statistical publications: International Trade Statistics, Trade Profiles, World Tariff Profiles and Services Profiles. The four publications provide detailed breakdowns of the latest data on world trade.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the WTO, International Trade Statistics 2015 looks back at world trade from 1995 to the end of 2014. The publication features a variety of charts to highlight the most noteworthy trends in world trade over the past 20 years. Numerous tables provide more detailed data while a chapter on methodology explains how the data are compiled.

World Tariff Profiles 2015 provides a unique collection of data on tariffs imposed by WTO members and other economies. It is jointly published by the WTO, the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The first part of the publication provides summary tables showing the average tariffs imposed by individual economies. The second part provides a more detailed table for each economy, listing the tariffs it imposes on its imports (by product group) as well as the tariffs it faces for its exports to major trading partners. The profiles show the maximum tariff rates that are legally “bound” in the WTO and the rates that economies actually apply. Data on anti-dumping measures are provided in a separate annex.

The special topic in this year’s issue is “Tariff accumulation, effective protection and export competitiveness in global production”, which looks into the impact of tariffs on industrial production costs. 

Trade Profiles 2015 provides one-page snapshots of the most relevant indicators on growth, trade and trade policy measures for over 200 economies.

The data provided include basic economic indicators (such as gross domestic product), trade policy indicators (such as tariffs, import duties, the number of disputes, notifications outstanding and contingency measures in force), merchandise trade flows (broken down by broad product categories and major origins and destinations), services trade flows (with a breakdown by major components) and industrial property indicators.

Services Profiles 2015 provides key statistics on “infrastructure services”, i.e. transportation, telecommunications, finance and insurance, for 186 economies. This includes, for the first time, data for all 161 WTO members.

The information is derived from multiple sources, such as national accounts, employment statistics, balance of payments statistics, foreign affiliates statistics, foreign direct investment statistics and quantitative indicators largely sourced from international/regional organizations and specialized bodies.

All three profiles – World Tariff Profiles, Trade Profiles and Services Profiles – are now available in the WTO Statistics Database in Excel and HTML formats, and the PDF versions are available in English on the WTO web site. All four publications can be ordered from the WTO Online Bookshop.

The WTO Statistics web page also contains updates of the International Trade and Market Access Data online application, the Statistics Database, the Tariff Analysis Online and Tariff Download Facility applications, and new versions of World and Regional Export Profiles (a snapshot of 2014 merchandise exports globally and by region) and World Commodity Profiles (a snapshot of 2014 merchandise exports and imports for total merchandise trade, agriculture, fuels and mining and manufactured products).