UNCTAD World seaborne trade by type of cargo

UNCTAD commissioned MDS Transmodal in 2019 to produce a methodology that would allow the global market for maritime freight services to be estimated using COMTRADE as an input and to supply software so that results can be replicated on a regular basis in the future. 

Techniques and methods from MDS Transmodal’s World Cargo Database (WCD) were combined with data from UNCTAD’s COMTRADE cargo database to produce tonnes and value with estimated splits by mode of appearance and maritime share. 

Functionality for error correction, using a selection of different statistical analyses, was included in the software. In addition, forecasting for countries behind in reporting, as well as translation between different editions of HS coding over time were important features that were added as the project progressed.

The data from the project has been incorporated into UNCTAD’s Data Hub:  

https://unctadstat.unctad.org/datacentre/dataviewer/US.SeaborneTrade