A Closer Look at Importation

Emily Brun

Dr. Kassens

Econ 122

December 14, 2015

            In reference to the country that I decided to analyze with the assistance of UN Comtrade, I decided to take a closer look at Ireland. I was happy to see their decline in the total import value of “84- Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc.” from 2008- 2013. The nominal decline equaled a total of $6,382,428,910. In addition, Ireland began to make a presence in the market of “30- Pharmaceutical products”. Even though the data provides information dating back to 2008, Ireland did not get involved with the importation of these products until 2009. However, once Ireland did begin importing pharmaceuticals it quickly became one of their top 4 imported goods.  

While analyzing all of the reporters for the “Top 20 Imported Commodities” reported on SAS’s UN Comtrade Demo, the most blatant trend that I noticed was the ubiquitous presence of either China, United States, or Germany in one of the top 3 positions of the “Total Import Value” table. In particularly in “39- Plastics and articles thereof”, “90- Optical, photo, technical, medical, et cap” and “- Nuclear reactors, boilers, and machinery”; United States, China, and Germany hold the top 3 positions. It is clear to see that “27- Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products” is the most profitable median of partner trade, being upwards of $1.5 billion. However, this commodity is also the only one out of the 20 commodities that does not include the United States, China, or Germany in the top 3 profiting positions of the table. This commodities top partners include Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, and Norway.

In addition to that outlier, “99- Commodities not specified according to kin” included top partners that were not present in any of the other commodities; these partners being “Areas, nes” and “Special Category”. Another trend that I found peculiar was the stark difference in total import value from the top partner to the 2^nd partner. The import value fell from $1,040,627,663,013 with Areas, nes to $263,700,179,868. China, United States, and Germany have remained in the top 3 for “Imported Commodities” between the years 2008- 2013. I was able to see the expansion of the amount imported by China and United States over the course of these years.

Aside from the previous trends that caught my attention, I decided to analyze “84- Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc.””. My reason for this being that I am interested in why so many resources are being applied to such harmful and violent commodities. The “Trade Balance” chart illustrates the amount of Nuclear Reactors, Boilers, Machinery, etc. imported at an amount of $2,264,631,856,332. Likewise, the exported amount populated at $2,451,463,067,697. The top 5 countries contributing to the trade of Nuclear reactors, etc. include China, United States, Germany, Japan, and Italy. The top 4 of these 5 countries are importing this commodity in the billions, while the subsequent countries are importing in the millions.

Reference List

SAS: The Power to Know. (2008- 2013). UN Comtrade Demo – SAS Visual Analytics. SAS: The Power

to Know. Top 20 Imported Commodities. Retrieved from http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

SAS: The Power to Know. (2011- 2013). UN Comtrade Demo – SAS Visual Analytics. SAS: The Power

to Know. Mirror Statistics Import – Top 20 Imported Commodities. Retrieved from http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

China

When I came to the U.S. from China this year, I found an interesting situation is that lots of products in the shopping mall are made in China. So I guess China has strong trade relations with the U.S. for a long time. According to the UN trade data, there are so much data prove my speculation. The data in trade balance shows that the U.S. is always trade partner with China in top 5 from 2008 to 2013. Also, Japan, Korea and Germany are also big the trade partners with China.

From the graph below, we can clearly know that the top 1 import and export commodities are both 85- Electrical, electronic equipment in China. They are 1,996,446,290,390 dollars and 2,526,304,889,020 respectively. That means the electrical equipment is more and more popular to use in China. In other words, the technology has played an important role in the Chinese citizen’s life. Moreover, we can see supply for export electronic equipment is more than demand for import electronic equipment. I think it is really good and facilitative for the economic development in China.

There is an another interesting point is the import commodities in lots of categories of natural resources like 27-Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products, 26-Ores, slag and ash, 74-Copper and articles thereof and 12-oil seed, oleagic fruits, grain, seed are overly more than export commodities in those. The reason why is there is only few natural and limited resources in China now. If we want to produce or manufacture some products, we will imports raw material from other countries. So there is only a little export of limited resources in China during 2008 and 2013.

According to the second graph below, we can clearly see that import of commodities is more than export of commodities a lot. But the situation of top 4 commodities is opposite. For example, the export of 02-meat and edible meat offal is more than import 393,110,164 dollars, because of there is no import of 02-meat and edible meat offal from other countries. That is a quite a large gap. I believe that the livestock husbandry developed really well.

The third chart below shows the change of import in China is quite dramatic. In 1998, China only import nearly 0.1 trillion dollars. After that, the trend mainly increased substantially. Until 2013, they almost import 2 trillion dollars. They increased about 20 times. I know this big change mainly affected by Chinese industry revolution. Before the Chinese industry revolution, there was only few industries. Because the government did not allow personal companies operate in the market. So the economy is really bad at that time. After the industry revolution, more and more companies operated. So the demand of import increased really quickly. Furthermore, I can see the import in 2009 decreased. I think that is because of the big economic crisis in 2008. Lots of companies in China went broke and had suffer on business. So there is a decrease in 2009.

citation by http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

Blog Post #2

Blog Post #2

The country I chose to analyze was Japan. Japan's economy is known to be one of the biggest in the world, and this is very evident when looking at trade data. Japan has done a very good job of exporting a lot more than they import. This obviously will help their GDP, because their Net Exports are positive. However the way they report their exports and imports is very different from the way their trading partners report. They report almost $400 trillion in exports to China. However China only reports $70 trillion in imports from Japan. This is obviously a huge disparity, and brings up a lot of questions about the economies in both countries. Obviously, countries are likely to say they export more than they actually do, and say that they import less than they actually do. But a disparity of $330 is outrageous, and frankly a bit confusing. It’s amazing to see how almost all of their trading partners report grossly different numbers than Japan does. Most of their partners report numbers that are half as much as Japan does. This brings up a lot of questions about Japans economy. When looking at their imports and exports, you see exactly what you would expect. Their leading exports are vehicles and electronics, which is what they are known for. Their leading imports are mineral fuels and different types of oils and distillation products. This is because they rely very heavily on these resources for their economy, but they don’t have a ready supply of them.

The good that I chose to analyze was the exportation of vehicles. This was one of their leading exports, bringing in over $800 trillion dollars. Obviously Japan is known for having various large car companies, so it is no surprise that such a large portion of their economy and exports comes from the selling of vehicles. It is also not a big surprise that the United States is the country that they sell the most to, totaling up near $270 trillion. The next highest country is China, who spends $75 trillion on vehicles from Japan. These two statistics are no surprise at all. The U.S. uses more cars than any other country in the world and many of these cars are foreign. China is no surprise either because they are Japan’s closest trading partner. Overall Japan sells cars all over the world, and they are known for making good cars, and so this is why they make so much money off of cars.

 http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

Alana Slater

Using data from the UN Comtrade, a lot of important information on global imports and exports can be found. The country that I chose to analyze using this data was the country of Colombia. Colombia’s top 5 top import partners were the United States, China, Mexico, Brazil, and Germany. Colombia’s top 5 export partners were the United States, Venezuela, China, Netherlands, and Ecuador. Since 1988, the United States has been Colombia’s top trading partner by a large margin. The country’s top import was nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc. Colombia imported $7,918,266,012 of this commodity in 2013. The country’s top export was mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products. Colombia exported $39,278,441,081 of this commodity in 2013. In the same year, Colombia had a negative trade balance of $559,326,246. This means that imported more than they exported. In previous years they had exported more than they imported resulting in a positive trade balance. By looking at the graph below, many things can be determined about Colombia’s trading patterns.

            From this chart, it is clear to see that Colombia needs to import a lot of heavy machinery and electrical equipment. This makes sense because Colombia is a poor country that doesn’t have the equipment or materials to contrast mass quantities of those types of products. However, this is a very important commodity that is needed in everyday life so it’s obvious that Colombia would need to buy a lot of those kinds of products. This chart also shows how heavily the country relies on selling natural kinds of resources. They depend heavily on exporting mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products. They also export a lot of coffee, tea, spices, pearls, precious stones, and plants. Colombia is not a very developed country so they need to do a lot of gathering and farming that produces products that they can export to other countries.

            There is some discrepancy between the data that Colombia reports and what its trading partners report. The biggest difference is with the United States. Colombia reported that in 2013 it imported $13,871,018,432 worth of goods, but the United States reported that Colombia only imported $11,043,803,462. There is also a big discrepancy between India and Colombia with regards to exports. Colombia reported that it exported $2,958,866,149 worth of goods to India but India reported that Colombia only exported $62,398,479. That is about a $2 trillion difference for both examples. Colombia also imports from a lot more of a variety of countries than it exports to. For the most part, Colombia only exports to the United States.

            From 1991 to about 2003, imports and exports from Colombia stayed at a pretty constant level from year to year. In 2003, they both began to steadily rise until 2011 where the both seem to be leveling off again. The rise in trade probably represents a relatively good time for the economy. The plateaus most likely represent a time where the economy of Colombia was not growing. The year with the most imports was 2013. In 2012, Colombia had the most exports it has ever had.

Sources:

UN Comtrade Data | SAS Visual Analytics. December 13 2015. http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

Germany's Trade Balance and Trade Composition, 2008-2013

Germany is an industrial giant, when it comes to engineering and manufacturing technologies. Known for producing high-quality products, Germany is one of the world’s leading sources of luxury automobiles, high-end appliances, power tools, and industrial equipment.  However, the global economic recession of 2008-2009 was sure to have impacted the German economy.  Since then, how has Germany recovered, and what are Germany’s top exports?    

Figure 1: Germany Trade Balance in millions of dollars, 2008-2013.  Note: Data were adapted from SAS Visual Analytics for UN Comtrade (2015). UN Comtrade Data. http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

Using the SAS Visual Analytics for UN Comtrade (2015) data interface, it is clear that Germany has been a net exporter in recent years. By plotting the German trade balances from 2008-2013, the effects of the 2008-2009 recession can be visualized.  Figure 1 shows the German trade balances from 2008-2013.  From 2008-2009, the German trade balance declined by $73 billion dollars, from $262 billion to $189 billion (Figure 1).  Since then, the trade balances have been increasing annually, to $264 billion in 2013. Despite the global recession, the German economy has remained a strong net exporter of commodities.
 

Figure 2:  Screenshot of SAS Visual Analytics for UN Comtrade Data interface, showing the top 20 exported commodities of Germany from 2008-2013.  Retrieved from: SAS Visual Analytics for UN Comtrade (2015). UN Comtrade Data. http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

As the birthplace of automobile luxury brands, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, and Audi, cars are one of Germany’s highest grossing exports ($1.3 trillion); second place to only industrial machinery ($1.4 trillion) (SAS, 2015).  The SAS Export Trade Composition (2015) section shows that the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and China, are Germany’s top importers of vehicles (Figure 2).  During the global recession of 2008-2009, vehicle exports took a hit during the, however they climbed to $242 billion in 2013 (SAS 2015).  In 2013, German vehicle exports were higher than in 2008, by $10 billion (SAS, 2015).      

Recently, German cars have been a topic of hot debate in popular press.  Volkswagen, one of Germany’s largest automakers, has been the topic of recent press following allegations by the EPA. In September, 2015, the EPA announced that Volkswagen would be issued a violation, due to many Volkswagen diesels failing the EPA CO2 emissions standards.  The New York Times (Russell, Gates, Keller and Watkins, 2015) explains that the cars were programmed to “cheat” during emissions tests, and the scandal sparked ongoing investigations in Europe.  With vehicles being Germany’s second-highest exported commodity, consumer kick-back may cause Germany’s trade composition to become less positive.  Friedrich Geiger (2015), of the Wall Street Journal, reports that Volkswagen stocks have declined by over 20 percent since the scandal made headlines in September. However, it would be interesting to see how the Volkswagen scandal affects Germany’s trade composition, and how much of an impact the scandal have on the German economy.  

References

Geiger, F. (2015, December 11). Volkswagen's World-Wide Sales Fall on Declines in U.S., South  America. Retrieved December 13, 2015, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagen-sales-fall-    showing-commercial-strain-of-emissions-scandal-1449845910

Russell, K., Gates, G., Keller, J., & Watkins, D. (2015, November 25). How Volkswagen Got Away  With Diesel Deception. Retrieved December 13, 2015, from  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/business/international/vw-diesel-emissions-scandal-  explained.html?_r=0

UN Comtrade Demo | SAS® Visual Analytics. (2015). Retrieved December 13, 2015, from              http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

Marissa Lahousse Blog #2

Marissa Lahousse

Economics 122

Professor Kassens

December 14, 2015

The program SAS puts the enormous amount of rows of UN Comtrade data into an easy visual form. From this program, you can analyze the trade between all of the nations in the world and draw inferences from it. One of the nations that caught my interest was Egypt. After analyzing the data, I have found that Egypt is a nation that relies heavily on importing products, and exports very little. This inference would mean that Egypt is a net importer. The main commodities that Egypt imports are mineral fuels, nuclear reactors, iron and steal, cereals, electrical commodities, and vehicles (SAS). In comparison, the top exported commodity is also mineral fuels, oils and distillation products (SAS). All of the other exported commodities are under $5 billion dollars, which is just pennies compared to the $50 billion dollars on exported mineral fuels.

In reviewing the imports and exported commodities, I also analyzed the trade balance between the nations that Egypt trades with. Starting with the 2008 dataset, the nation that imported the most commodities with Egypt was the United States. In 2010, there is a slight inward shift of imported commodities from the United States, and it looks like all of the nations are getting closer to a more equal trading pattern. However, in 2011 the United States imports are greatly increased again, causing a large divide between all of the other nations. In addition, between the 2010 and 2011 time period, Egypt starts to export commodities to India, which is their current second top exporting country that they trade to. In 2012, the United States commodities again are increased and China is moved to the top importer of commodities for Egypt. During the 2013 period, China continues to increase their imports while the other nations decrease their imports. In addition, the Russian Federation in this time period decreases their imported commodities by 50%. In reviewing data from the Observatory of economic complexity, the trade balance also shows that there has been a significant increasing gap between imported commodities and exported commodities. The OEC states that “As of 2013 Egypt had a negative trade balance of $33.1B in net imports. As compared to their trade balance in 1995 when they still had a negative trade balance of $10B in net imports” (OEC, n.d., p. 1).

The largest imported commodity is mineral fuels. This is interesting to me, as their largest exported commodity is mineral fuels as well. The data on OEC goes into more detail about the mineral fuels that are imported into Egypt. The largest percent of mineral fuels that are imported is refined petroleum, which accounts for 9.4% of all imported commodities (OEC, 2015). Second to that, petroleum gas accounts for the next largest portion of mineral fuels, and is 2.5% of the total imported commodities as well(OEC, 2015). Both of these programs provide an immense about of data analytics that can be used to analyze the trading patterns of every country in the world.

Resources

UN Comtrade Demo. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

Observatory of Economic Complexity. (2015). Retrieved from http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/egy/