Traffic analytics, rankings, and competitive metrics for unctad.org as of September 2025

To support evidence-based policymaking and research in the transport sector, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Bank have developed a Global Transport Costs dataset for International Trade.

In order to provide a more visual understanding of global transport costs related to international trade, an interactive map has been created to visualize the transport costs (incl. insurance costs) of individual commodities (Harmonized System, six-digit level) traded between two countries in 2016. The map focuses on sea mode while the chart shows total transport costs by mode of transport. This visualization aims to complement the underlying quantitative data by offering alternative access to the data and providing high-level insights into how transport costs may differ as a function of mode of transport, distance, economies of scale, and other factors.

Being very interested in enhancing the user experience with regard to this visual approach to global transport costs, we look forward to any feedback (statistics@unctad.org) to further optimize the display of global transports data for international trade.

s a dynamic and practical tool to support developing countries in understanding the status of their productive capacity and how this can be improved.

It builds on UNCTAD’s long-standing work on productive capacities, which are essential for generating inclusive and sustained economic growth and achieving sustainable development.

The PCI covers 194 economies for the period 2000-2022. The set of productive capacities and their specific combinations are mapped across 42 indicators. This makes our PCI multidimensional in its analytical abilities.

The PCI can help diagnose the areas where countries may be leading or falling behind, spotlighting where policies are working and where corrective efforts are needed. It suggests a roadmap for future policy actions and interventions under each of its eight components: human capital, natural capital, energy, ICTs, structural change, transport, institutions and the private sector.

The PCI was developed in response to the ECOSOC resolution (E/RES/2017/29), encouraging UNCTAD “to pursue its methodological work to measure progress in and identify obstacles to the development of productive capacities in developing countries”.

The PCI has been peer-reviewed and validated at national and regional levels by leading technical experts across the UN system, as well as by academics and government stakeholders.

Stakeholders in select countries have been trained on how to use the index in their development policymaking processes. UNCTAD stands ready to conduct more training sessions at the request of countries.

What are productive capacities? UNCTAD has long defined productive capacities as “the productive resources, entrepreneurial capabilities and production linkages, which together determine the capacity of a country to produce goods and services and enable it to grow and develop.”

Productive resources are factors of production, including different types of productive resources and capital. They include financial capital and physical capital, the latter comprising both machinery and equipment (typically operating at the firm / farm level) and infrastructure. Entrepreneurial capabilities are the skills, knowledge, and information which enterprises have. They comprise entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial capabilities, and technological capabilities. They include the important skills required for investment, production and establishing linkages at the firm / farm level. Production linkages are flows among productive units (firms / farms) of goods and services, knowledge, technology and information, and productive resources, including human resources). They include exchanges among productive units of different sizes (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and large ones), and ownership structures (domestic / foreign, public / private), operating in different sectors. What role do productive capacities play? Developing productive capacities, plays a central role in setting in motion the long-term process of structural transformation, which is the backbone of sustainable development. The available evidence shows no nation has developed without fostering productive capacities and structural economic transformation.

Building the economic resilience of developing countries remains a daunting challenge. It depends fundamentally on creating, maintaining and using productive capacities to realize development objectives. This requires a shift from the current fragmented and project-based interventions towards coherent, economy-wide and programme-based approaches to removing binding constraints on development. Actions and interventions at the domestic level need to be supported and complemented by additional robust international support.

The PCI makes a...

Short description Total imported plastic (million US dollars) Summary This indicator presents a time series of trade data containing the total imported value of plastic at country level. The total plastic trade encompasses full life-cycle of plastic, covering primary forms, intermediate forms, intermediate manufactured goods, final manufactured goods, and plastic waste. The trade data collection is from the UNSD Comtrade database, which has a dedicated methodology. Reporting is conducted globally by individual countries annually, covering the period from 2017 to 2022. The compartment is anthropogenic activities within the domain of production and consumption. The data is presented in the unit million US dollars, corresponding to the respective year of collection. It is essential to highlight that the US dollar values have not been adjusted for inflation or price fluctuations over the years but reflect the values in USD for the given year. Description Entity: United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) Source URL: UNCTAD: https://unctad.org/ Data set: https://unctad.org/publication/global-trade-plastics-insights-first-life-cycle-trade-database Global trade in plastics: insights from the first life-cycle trade database: https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ser-rp-2020d12_en.pdf UN Comtrade: https://comtradeplus.un.org/ Time Period: 2017-2022Methodology: UN Comtrade Methodology Frequency Update: Unknown Last Update: 27-12-2024 Geo-Coverage: Global Licensing: Public

The paper sheds light on whether openness to GVCs, a primary form of international trade nowadays, has a significant and positive association with government expenditure. Focusing mainly on one of the most frequently discussed risks of GVC participation – skills of domestic labor, it checks whether government expenditure on education increases as a state is more integrated into GVCs. It then moves on to investigate whether increased education expenditure has a robust and positive impact on skills readiness, such as general labor skills and skills to use technology. The association between GVC participation and government expenditure is examined through cross-sectional analyses of the statistical models with a set of variables extracted from a few reliable resources such as the UNCTAD-Eora Global Value Chain Database and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Database. Adding interaction terms to the models further expands our understanding of the complex association between GVCs, education expenditure, and domestic elements of labor.