The Trade Domain

The Trade domain provides import and export trade data between source and destination countries at common border points for various product types.

The Trade domain is broken into three sections:

1. Search and Filter

Expand to learn about search and filter

You can filter the available data series using one or more of the following criteria:

Period: Filters by the collection/reporting period.
- Start date:
- End date:
Border point*: Filters by the border point where the trade was observed. This filters aggregates items into a multi-level lists. Selecting the higher-level item in the list will automatically select all the lower-level items in the list.
Reporting country*: Filters by the country where the trade was observed.
Source*: Filters by the country where the product originated.
Destination*: Filters by the destination country of the trade flow, or where the product is destined to.
Product*: Filters by commodity or service, classified using a modified FEWS NET version of the UN CPC v2. This filters aggregates items into a multi-level lists. Selecting the higher-level item in the list will automatically select all the lower-level items in the list.
Data Source Document*: Filters by the name of the document used as the primary source of information or data.
Flow type*: Filters by the flow type of the trade, i.e., Export, Import, Re-export, or Transit.
Trade type*: Filters by the type of trade, i.e., Formal or Informal.

*You can search using any of the above criteria marked with an asterisk. You can also search, but not filter, by:

UN CPC v2 code: Classification structure of products based on the UN’s Central Product Classification (CPC) rules.
Data Source Organization: The name or unique numeric id of the organization that provided the data source document.
Unit: The measuring unit of products during the data collection, for example, 100kg or 100lb.

2. Data Selection

Expand to learn about data selection

Once you have applied your search terms and filters, you will be presented with a list of all available data series that match your criteria. A data series is a collection of related data points from a single data source that are viewable as a single row within a table of data. They represent the change over time of a specific indicator. Data series are presented in table format where each row represents a single data series.

The Trade domain data selection table includes the following columns:

Reporting country: The country that reports the trade flow. Mostly this is the source country but it can also be the destination.
Source: The source country of the trade flow; where the product has been originated.
Destination: The destination country of the trade flow; where the product is destined to.
Product name: The commodity or service classified using a modified FEWS NET version of the UN CPC v2 codes.
Flow type: The type of flow designation (i.e., Import, Export or Transit).
Trade type: The trade type designation as either Informal or Formal.
First:
Last:
Count: The number of data points in the data series.
Info: Hover over the information icon in a row to see more details including the data series ID and data source document.

To visualize and export data, you will need to select one or more data series by checking the box at the beginning of the row containing that series.

In addition to selecting data series, you can interact with the data selection table in the following ways:

Selected data series can be viewed in the Selected tab.
You can clear your selections using the Clear Selected button.
By default the series are ordered alphabetically by country. You can click on the header of any column to sort by that column instead of by country.
Selecting one or more data series creates a savable dataset. For more information on creating and saving datasets, see Create and Save Datasets.

3. Data Visualization and Export

Expand to learn about data visualization and export options

Options within the Trade domain allow for aggregation or conversion of the trade data into reporting schedules and units of measures specified by the user. The available parameters are:

Reporting schedule: Specifies the intervals that the search result data is displayed. The available intervals include daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual.
Common weight unit: Specifies the unit of measure to be used for the weight of the products in the search results. The available weight units include: grams, kilograms, cuartilla, dry metric tonne, hectogram, kantar, media cuartilla, monton, ns malwa, pound, tonne and troy oz.
Common volume unit: Specifies the unit of measure to be used for the volume of the products in the search results. The available volume units include: bag, barrel, bottle, bunch, bundle, sack, cubic meter, liter, milliliter, million British thermal units, pile, and US liquid gallon.
Common item unit: Specifies a non-standard unit of measure to be used for the items of the products in the search results. The available item units include: tray, tubers, cart_load, day, hour, individual item, jerkin, large carton, loaf, medium carton, one way trip (passenger transport by bus), person, small bunch (handful), tuber and week.

Expand to learn about the Chart visualization

Chart

The Chart tab in the Trade domain displays a bar graph where each data series is represented by bars of a different color. The chart plots the product quantity against time with the x-axis representing the time and y-axis showing the product quantity in kilograms.

You can interact with the chart in the following ways:

Hover over a bar to see more details including period and quantity.
Single click on a legend item to exclude it from the graph.
Double click on a legend item to display only its trace.
Use your mouse to draw a box around any part of the graph, or move the sliders in the timeline bar below the graph, to zoom in.
Double click on the graph background to return it into the initial zoom state.
Click the pan icon in the top right to enable panning functionality. This will allow you to use your mouse to drag the graph left or right.
Click the autoscale icon in the top right to have the graph automatically select to the best period to display.
Click the camera icon in the top right to download the chart as a .png file.

Expand to learn about the Table visualization

The Table tab for the Trade domain is organized by each column representing a reporting country. The rows provide the following metadata:

border_point: The geographic location where the trade flow has been conducted.
source: The source country of the trade flow; where the product has been originated.
destination: The destination country of the trade flow; where the product is destined to.
product: The commodity or service classified using a modified FEWS NET version of the UN CPC v2 codes.
unit: The measuring unit of products during the data collection, for example, 100kg or 100lb.
flow_type: The type of flow designation (i.e., Import, Export or Transit).
trade_type: The trade type designation as either Informal or Formal.
datasource document: The document used as the primary source of information or data.

Expand to learn about data export

The Export tab includes the following options:

Download as: Provides a download of a static dataset. This will export only the data series that you have selected. Downloads are available in the following formats:
- Flat format CSV
- Time series format CSV
Refreshable link: Connects directly to the FEWS NET Data Warehouse database server, allowing Excel, your browser, or another application to automatically fetch data from the server whenever the link is accessed. Refreshable links are available in the following formats:
- Flat CSV
- Time series CSV
- Flat HTML
- Time series HTML
- JSON
- XML