Vietnam's Analysis Data and The numbers reflected differed from the "FACT"

I have been leaving my country for 4 years, so I am really curious what have changed in my country, Vietnam recently. Using Trade History plot on SAS website showed me that from 2008 to 2013, Vietnam exported to China the most, and ranked down to Japan, Australia, Germany, and Malaysia; and imported from United States, Republic of Korea, other Asian countries, Thailand, and Singapore. These searching results are really surprised me because when I was working for the import-export company in Vietnam, the fact was United States had been the top export partner of Vietnam based on the market research and the statistical data of Vietnamese customs Department.  

 According to the data on this chart, Vietnam exported during 2008-2013 around $376 billion, and imported around $437 billion. The difference between export and import was approximately $61 billion. This number might not be a big deal with the developed country with strength value of money. But if you think about $1 exchanged to 20,000 VND, it really did put Vietnam into the deep trade deficit, which led the huge decrease of Vietnam’s GDP. Now I understand clearly why most of my friends graduated with Master degree, but still had to work as waitress or waiter at coffee shop, or restaurants because no jobs created when the country faced the recession.

“Talking about Vietnam, we all know that Vietnam is the agricultural country which was view as the world’s second largest rice exporter in the world”. This statement have been teaching in the school system about history, geography, economics, and spreading around the country through all kinds of media. I was very proud my country because of the development of agricultural industry. Everything was doubted when I had better perception about how small Vietnam is in order to provide rice for the whole big world. Vietnam Food Association (VFA) data also emphasized one more time that rice exports from Vietnam in 2012 reached a record high of 7.7 million tons, thereby maintaining its place as the world’s second largest rice exporter

However, what I am seeing right now on the data from SAS that top 5 commodities were exported from Vietnam did not include any rice section. My first question is if Vietnam reports these data, why it had to hide that Vietnam is the top rice exporter in the world. The second question is if SAS data provided is correct, why the Vietnamese government reports the wrong information of its economic data to its people. And the third question for myself is why the reports between data and mirror data on SAS have a lot of differences. Hopefully, all of my questions will be answered in the future when countries honestly report their economic situations.

References:

Import-export Data. SAS Comtrade, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

"Vietnamese Rice Export." Vietnam Customs. N.p., 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

The United Kingdom &

Trade Patterns

The Big Picture

We can analyze the trade data of the United Kingdom using SAS's UN Comtrade API. SAS collects millions of lines of data from countries all over the world, and converts it all into a wonderful and informational API plugin that users can use to analyze and observe trade data between countries. This API can be useful to bring new insight into a country's trading patterns, consumption habits, among many other things. For example, the United kingdom is a relatively wealthy country, and as such, we can compare its trading patterns to reflect and such statements. 

Analyzing The Data

Out of all the imports to the United Kingdom, commodities stand out near the top. We can take this data and show that the United Kingdom has established its industrial sector, and is well developed. This means that the country can generate enough GDP to provide its population with the ability to spend their money on commodities. As I stated earlier, the United Kingdom is a well developed country, and as a result, there is a much smaller number of imports relating to industrial expansion. We can compare this data to a developing country like Uganda, and see that commodities imported to Uganda are not even in the top 10 of highest imports for the country, while things such as Electrical equipment and machinery are in the top 5. This small sample of data is one out of a number of things we can use to analyze and observe wether a country is developed or developing.

The United Kingdom's number one import is Mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products. Being a well developed country, we can justify this by looking at its other top imports. For example, the fourth highest import is vehicles other than railway and tramway. These two data points are directly correlated as most vehicles consume mineral fuels. The United Kingdom is also a small island, and imports the majority of the oil it consumes. Another sign of a wealthy country is its export to import ratio. The United Kingdom imports a higher number of goods than it exports, symbolizing a developed and wealthy country that is eager to increase its consumption.

In general, countries that are well developed and have previously been industrialized, tend to focus on exporting more finished products than raw materials. When observing the UN Comtrade data, the same data is reflected. The majority of the United Kingdom's exports are commodities, machinery and vehicles.

Overall, the United Kingdom's trading patterns are relatively consistent with other well developed western countries like the United States and France. They all export a majority of finished products rather than raw materials, and they all consume relatively the same types of imports. 

However, with all of this information taken into account, I expect the export of oil in the United Kingdom to increase in the coming years, as a recent find of an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil has been discovered in the south of England. (BBC) It will take time to sort out the logistics, and begin the construction process of the machinery needed to extract the oil, but it will hopefully help the United Kingdom's incredibly high fuel prices.

SAS Comtrade Data

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

BBC Oil Find

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32229794

Iceland in the global market

U.N Comtrade Data

Jared Mercadante

Blog Post #2

     Being a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean poses problems for Iceland. With a population of only 331,310, their productivity is very limited. In addition, the island is covered in glaciers, volcanoes, and lava fields, making much of it almost useless, as production is concerned. Because it is an island, a major component of their economy is fishing. Their exports, in dollars, of fish hovers currently at $10,193,719,691. Their other largest export is aluminum. For items found most useful in modern life, such as cars and electronics, they have to import almost everything. As you can see in the graph below, this small Scandinavian island imports most of its useful goods, yet comes out as a net exporter due to its aluminum production and excellent fishing capabilities:

     Iceland gets most of its imports from Norway, the United States, and Germany, who, altogether, make up about 30% of Iceland's total imports, coming in at $8,839,443,999. Iceland exports the majority of its products to the Netherlands, Germany, and United Kingdom. 

     When looking at mirror statistics, for both imports and exports, there is a tendency for countries to be incredibly inconsistent in their reporting. For example, the United States reported exports of about $6 trillion, yet other countries only reported receiving about $3.75 trillion. As far as imports are concerned, Icelandic reports are pretty consistent with those of the countries from which it receives its goods. Their exports are less in line with the reports of other countries. Iceland reported exports of about $4.7 billion to Norway who, in return, only documented imports of $671,000,000. I have trouble believing that this discrepancy comes from poor accounting. There must be other reasons for the massive differences between Icelandic and Norwegian reports. 

     Due to the island's culture, fishing is naturally one of its largest and most lucrative businesses. Iceland's exports of fish in 2013 were about $5 billion dollars. The majority of Iceland's fishing trade is, as it should be expected, with first world countries. Although this is logical, I find it slightly odd. Most first world countries- Germany, Spain, France, England, the United States, etc.- are not land locked, meaning that it seems obvious they would be able to fish for themselves. But, because of Iceland's inability to do much else, it seems that other countries are content to let this small island fish for them which, in turn, allows these larger countries to allocate resources to other areas. Because of its ability to focus on fishing, Iceland has an absolute advantage in that area. 

      Although it is small, Iceland has a rich tradition of economic activity. It is not a world power, yet its specific skill sets (fishing and aluminum production) allow it to survive in today's economy.

Works Cited

•  Statistics Iceland. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/population/population-in-the-3rd-quarter-2015/>.
•  "UN Comtrade Demo | SAS® Visual Analytics." UN Comtrade Demo | SAS® Visual Analytics. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

Analysis of Belgium

Kevin Elliott
The country that I choose to analyze is Belgium. Other than Belgium's top trading commodity, they are relatively even in there imports and exports. From 2008-2013 Belgium top import commodity at over 417 billion dollars was mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products. Also, from 2008-2013 Belgium exported over 277 billion dollars for mineral fuels, oils and distillation products. It was interesting to see the the large difference between the amount they export and the amount they import for the same product. During the same time period the second leading commodity was vehicles other than railway, tramway. There was relatively no difference between the amount that they exported and the amount they imported. The next major trade products for Belgium is pharmaceutical products, Nuclear, reactors, boilers, machinery, etc and organic chemicals. Interestingly Belgium is very balanced between the import and exports of those products.

In 2008 Belgium top 5 trade partners were Netherlands, Germany, France, United Kingdom and United States. In 2013 the only difference in Belgium top 5 trading partners was that the United States and the United Kingdom switched places. The amount of money Belgium spends and on its top trading product has definitely increased from 2008 to 2013. In 2008 they imported 71 billion dollars on mineral fuels, oils and distillation products and in 2013 for the same product they spent 91 billion dollars on it. In 2008 the gap Netherlands and Germany was only 10 billion but in 2013 the gap grew to 23 billion. That is very interesting to see the trade difference grew that quickly over a short period of time.

From 2008-2013 the main trade commodities for Belgium was mineral fuels, oils and distillation products. Over 2008-2013 the main countries that Belgium imported and exported that product from was Netherlands. Over the past five years the total amount that Belgium has imported from Netherlands from those products consist of a little over 224 billion dollars. The top three countries for the total import of minerals fuels, oils and distillation products in 2008 were Netherlands, Norway, and Russia. In 2008 Belgium imported 38 billion dollars worth of mineral fuels, oils and distillation products and exported 10 billion dollars to Netherlands. Also, Belgium imported 5 billion dollars and exported 150 million dollars from Norway and Beligum imported 4 billion dollars and exported 160 million dollars worth of mineral fuels, oils and distillation products from Russia. In 2013, Netherlands, Russia and Norway were Belgium’s leading trade partners for mineral fuels, oils and distillation products. Like in 2008, there was also a large in the trading partners for that product. Belgium imported 49 billion from Netherlands in that product while other top trading partners for that mineral fuels was under 10 billion.

UN Comtrade Demo, SAS Visual Analytics. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2015,

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

Blog Post #2

Mackenzie Connolly

The UN Comtrade data provided by SAS is remarkable and allows the viewers to analyze specific countries, commodities, and trade habits among other things and compare them with the information from other countries. It allows users to see the areas in the world that are the most and least successful and how they came to be that way. I chose to analyze South Africa, and immediately when I clicked on the section of the data that says “trade balance”, it shows which sections of products South Africa is a large importer of as well as what it is a large exporter of. The products that are most imported by South Africa are mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products followed by nuclear reactors, boilers and other types of machinery. This makes sense because these types of resources aren’t readily available in South Africa and they need to have these resources imported from other countries. Some of their other top exported commodities, with the exception of pearls, precious stones, metals, and coins which is their top exported good, are vehicles other than railway and tramway, and iron and steel. Their top country for importing oils was Saudi Arabia, which is not a surprise because Saudi Arabia is one of the top suppliers of fuels, oils, and distillation products in the world.

Their largest exported product which wasn’t surprising was pearls, precious stones, metals, and coins. Africa in general is a large hotspot for these types of natural resources and they are in high demand and are of high value in the first world society, especially in the United States. Their top country for exporting precious stones metals and coins was to the US and this is also not surprising because we value things like precious stones and metals that have a paradoxical value. This means there isn’t necessarily a high use for these types of goods, but we place a high value on these products. For example, a diamond may not have a high usage even though it is highly valued, but something like water that has a high usage because it is necessary to survive, has a low overall value because it is readily available and doesn’t have a high cost. In the trade history section, which you can see in the screenshot below, if you analyze South Africa, you can see that the United States is on the line for being one of their top importers as well as exporters, but it is more above the line, meaning that the US imports more goods from South Africa, specifically these precious stones and metals. These trends can be seen in all sectors of the trade data and it is interesting to note how much revenue they bring in to South Africa even though the goods themselves don’t have a high usage, there is simply a high value placed on them by our society.

South Africa is also listed in the top 20 commodities in the Mirror Statistics Import section of the UN Comtrade data, because of their high exports of precious stones, metals, and pearls.  They are also high exporters of ores, slag, and ash. Under the trade history plot you can see that China is quickly becoming a country that often trades with South Africa and as China becomes more powerful especially with increasing their net exports, this will become a trend with China and most other countries as well. China recently passed the United States as being the number one exporter in the world and you can see the evidence of this with countries like South Africa.

Elvis Choi
Dr. Kassens
Econ 122
December 13, 2015

Trading of Hong Kong

For the blog 2, Hong Kong is chosen to analyze by using the UN comtrade data for several reasons. The main reason is because Hong Kong is where I come from and I want to show you more information through the blog. Another reason is Hong Kong is a city which rely on trading (23.9% contribution of GDP (Economic and Trade Information on Hong Kong, 2015)), which is importing good and then export it to others places. For following blog, I am going to talk about the general trading patterns of Hong Kong, one particular good “85 - Electrical, electronic equipment”.

According to the data of UN comtrade in 2013, the top five importer of Hong Kong are China, Switzerland, Japan, United States, Other Asia (not elsewhere specified). And their corresponding import value are about 267 billion, 51 billion, 39 billion, 37 billion and 34 billion. (UN Comtrade Demo, 2015)

The top five exporter are China, United States, Japan, India, Other Asia (not elsewhere specified). And their export value are 320 billion, 42 billion, 18 billion, 11 billion and 11 billion respectively. (UN Comtrade Demo, 2015)

The top three commodities are “85 - Electrical, electronic equipment”, “71 - Pearls, precious stones, metals, coins, etc” and “84 - Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc”. (UN Comtrade Demo, 2015)

As you can see, it is very obvious that China is the most important trading partner of Hong Kong. In both import and export, China is the top one and its trading value is much higher than other partners, five times or even more. China is in Top Three of each of the Top Three commodities. It is not hard to understand. Hong Kong has a geographical advantage that Hong Kong is just beside the China. The transport distance is short. Hong Kong is also part of the China that it is easier to come up agreement like Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) between two places, which give a big benefit to Hong Kong to trade with China.

 

For the particular good or service (import or export), “85 - Electrical, electronic equipment” was chosen. There is an interesting thing is that if you look at the trade balance graph, the import bar of each good and services is very close to the export bar. It has import value 236 billion and export value 224 billion (UN Comtrade Demo, 2015). The difference is only 12 billion. You would know that most of the imported “85 - Electrical, electronic equipment” are exported to another place. According to top import and export partner, imported goods come from Asia like China, Singapore and South Korea. But exported to the biggest economy like China, US and Japan (UN Comtrade Demo, 2015). This show the role of Hong Kong in trading. For the rest of “85 - Electrical, electronic equipment” (12 billion), a large part of products would be consumed by Hong Kong people. According to a survey, in average, each Hong Kong people own 4.3 electrical devices including mobile phone, personal computer, laptop and so on (CUHK-AIA Survey of E-devices, 2012). It is a very high number in world. It is believed that it is the whole picture of the particular goods “85 - Electrical, electronic equipment”.

All in all, it is just a short discussion about the trading in Hong Kong. Hope you can know more about it.

Reference

Economic and Trade Information on Hong Kong. (2015, November 27). Retrieved December 14, 2015, from http://hong-kong-economy-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/Market-Environment/Economic-and-Trade-Information-on-Hong-Kong/etihk/en/1/1X000000/1X09OVUL.htm

CUHK-AIA Survey of E-devices. (2012, August 22). Retrieved December 14, 2015, from http://wecareaboutewaste.com/documents/cuhk_aia_e-devices_survery_gen_public_findings_eng.pdf

UN Comtrade Demo. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2015, from http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

Mexico

The Country I chose to analyze from the UN Comtrade Data is Mexico. I used http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html to view the data on the economy in Mexico. In analyzing the data, I can see that the United States is Mexico’s biggest trade partner. The United States Dollar has a high exchange rate against the peso, which is Mexico’s currency. The exchange rate is for every one Mexican peso, you have one United States’ nickel. I love learning about Mexico as someday I hope to be able to do missions work there with my church. Plus, I am a Spanish minor.

The general trading patterns I see are that the United States is the top importer and exporter for Mexico. China and Japan are a distant second and third place for Mexico. The top export for Mexico is 85- Electrical, electronic equipment. 85- Electrical, electronic equipment has a value of about $75,194,613,741. The second most exported group is 27- Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products at a value of $50,165,033,611. The third highest group for Mexico is 84- Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc. It has a value of about  $42,821,614,910.

The top imports are 85- Electrical, electronic equipment, 84-Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc., and 87-Vehicles other than railway, tramway. The 85- Electrical, electronic equipment group has a value of about $967,704,604,473. The 84-Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc. group has a value of about $690,047,931,112. The 87-Vehicles other than railway, tramway group has a value of about $377,212,597,681. Mexico’s value for imports is a lot higher than the value for exports. It relies on other countries for the majority of their larger products. In looking at the graphs of both imports and exports it looks like Mexico’s economy has been on a steady increase since 2009.

             

One good in particular that stands out for me is 87- Vehicles other than railway, tramway. I was very surprised to see that Mexico produced that much product that relates to this category. I would have never thought they were that productive when it comes to vehicles. I just imagined most of the cars being made in the eastern hemisphere. The biggest trade partner for the 87- Vehicles other than railway, tramway category is once again the United States. Mexico imports about $18,735,417,556. It exports about $61,890,239,685. Which has drastically increased from 2009. In 2009, Mexico was only importing about $9,749,701,067 from the United States from this category. It was also only exporting $27,279,892,957. I believe this increase can be explained by the recession we faced in 2008 and 2009. The whole world was hit pretty hard by it. The economies changed pretty drastically during this time.

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

XE  The World's Trusted Currency Authority. Retrieved December 13, 2015, from http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=MXN&To=USD#converter.