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Data

Top export partner category

What you should know about this indicator

  • This indicator shows which country was the largest destination for exports from each country–year, based on export values in current US dollars.
  • Exports are valued on an FOB basis (Free on Board). This means the values include the cost of the goods up to the exporter's border, but exclude transport and insurance costs after that point.
  • The measure covers goods only, not services such as software, tourism, or financial services.
  • The top destination for each country–year was identified, and then a global count was made of how often each country appeared in this role. Here, the top ten countries with the highest counts are shown as separate categories, while the rest were grouped as "Other".
Top export partner category
For every country, the main trading partner receiving the largest share of its total .
Source
International Monetary Fund (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
July 8, 2025
Next expected update
July 2026
Date range
1948–2024

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

International Monetary Fund – International Trade in Goods (by partner country) (IMTS)

The International trade in goods by partner country dataset (formerly Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS)) includes goods (merchandise) export and import statistics disaggregated according to a country's trading partners.

Retrieved on
July 8, 2025
Retrieved from
https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.STA:IMTS
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Monetary Fund. International Trade in Goods (by partner country), https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.STA:IMTS. Accessed on 08 July 2025.

The International trade in goods by partner country dataset (formerly Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS)) includes goods (merchandise) export and import statistics disaggregated according to a country's trading partners.

Retrieved on
July 8, 2025
Retrieved from
https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.STA:IMTS
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Monetary Fund. International Trade in Goods (by partner country), https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.STA:IMTS. Accessed on 08 July 2025.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Top export partner category”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Bertha Rohenkohl, Veronika Samborska, Simon Van Teutem, Diana Beltekian, and Max Roser (2018) - “Trade and Globalization”. Data adapted from International Monetary Fund. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260417-112857/grapher/countrys-top-destination-for-exports-of-goods.html [online resource] (archived on April 17, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

International Monetary Fund (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

International Monetary Fund (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Top export partner category” [dataset]. International Monetary Fund, “International Trade in Goods (by partner country) (IMTS)” [original data]. Retrieved April 17, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260417-112857/grapher/countrys-top-destination-for-exports-of-goods.html (archived on April 17, 2026).

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