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Key trends in world trade revealed by new classification public.em

Blog post Published on 14/07/2023
 By Edvinas Drevinskas, Eric Ng Shing, Dayong Yu

The WTO released in July 2023 a new version of its Multilateral Trade Negotiation (MTN) Categories, a classification public.em used by the WTO to compile trade statistics and to analyse trade policy.

First used in the Tokyo Round of trade negotiations in the 1970s, it has been occasionally updated to reflect evolving trends. This recently released version contains 72 new subcategories for the classification of traded goods.

The resulting data provides valuable insights into trends and developments in international trade. 
Key trends in world trade revealed by new classification public.em
Breakdown of global trade by sector

Figure 1 shows the shares of world trade in 2021 in value terms broken down by the new MTN categories. The inner ring compares shares of agriculture and non-agriculture products, revealing that non-agriculture/industrial goods accounted for 92.5 per cent of world trade.

The middle ring shows that the two largest sectors were minerals and metals (17.7 per cent) followed by electrical machinery and electronic equipment (17.6 per cent), which together accounted for more than a third of world trade in 2021.

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