Richest Countries International Trade Statistics
Wealthiest Economies Rated by Global-Trade-to-GDP Ratio
Sep 27, 2009
On track to generate an estimated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$14.2 trillion for 2009, the United States of America is the world’s wealthiest country. America generated $3.4 trillion in international trade transactions in 2008. The U.S. sold $1.291 trillion worth of American exports to other countries while spending $2.112 trillion on imported foreign goods.
Economists use a simple formula to gauge how dependent an economy is on international trade for its national output wealth: divide a country's total trade (exports plus imports) by its overall GDP.
Understanding the Global-Trade-to-GDP Ratio
Sometimes, the foreign-trade ratio for a country can exceed 100% of GDP. This is because GDP is the sum of four components: consumption, investment, government spending plus net exports. The last component, net exports requires subtracting imports from exports. In contrast, a country’s total trade is the result of adding exports to imports. The total trade number is positive and therefore always exceeds net exports which can be negative.
For example, a country can have a large aggregate trade number whereas its calculated net exports is either a small or negative statistic. Particularly when a country’s exports and imports are massive relative to the other GDP components, a nation’s amount of foreign trade can dwarf the GDP number and generate a world-trade ratio well over 100%.
United States Dependency on Global Trade
For the U.S., the international-trade-to-GDP ratio is 23.9% based on 2009 GDP estimates and U.S. export and import trade statistics as provided by the CIA World Factbook for 2008.
Using a similar approach, America’s 23.9% score can then be compared against the percentages for other countries. This enables analysts to roughly benchmark the percentage that the U.S. and other countries depend on global trade.
The following three lists of countries represent the 30 richest countries with the highest GDP amounts as estimated by the International Monetary Fund this past April. Lists are sorted in descending order starting with nations having the highest foreign trade ratios.
Richest Countries Most Dependent on International Trade
Belgium, Taiwan, Netherlands, South Korea and Saudi Arabia all have international trade ratios greater than 100%. These economies are exceptionally dependent on, and therefore highly sensitive to, the current downturn in world trade.
1. Belgium … 171.4% (US$743 billion in 2008 trade divided by a 2009 GDP of $433.52 billion)
2. Taiwan … 147.2% ($491.6 billion divided by $333.9 billion)
3. Netherlands … 135.8% ($1 trillion divided by $743 billion)
4. South Korea … 118.4% ($860.9 billion divided by $727.1 billion)
5. Saudi Arabia … 111.8% ($418.1 billion divided by $374 billion)
6. Switzerland … 98.7% ($446.1 billion divided by $452 billion)
7. Sweden … 97% ($348.4 billion divided by $359.1 billion)
8. Poland … 92.9% ($374.3 billion divided by $403 billion)
9. Austria … 91.9% ($332.5 billion divided by $361.8 billion)
10. Germany … 89.2% ($2.73 trillion divided by $3.1 trillion).
Other Richest Countries Sensitive to World Trade Volumes
Despite not being a member of the European Union, Norway belongs to the European Economic Area and enjoys a high level of trade with EU nations. Both of America’s NAFTA partners, Mexico and Canada, have economies that are over 3 times more dependent on international trade than the U.S. Even with more than 1.3 billion Chinese consumers, China’s global-trade-to-GDP ratio is more than twice that of the American economy.
11. Norway … 74.8% ($US254.8 billion in 2008 trade divided by a 2009 GDP of $340.7 billion)
12. Mexico … 72.5% ($599.9 billion divided by $827.2 billion)
13. Canada … 71.1% ($874.3 billion divided by $1.23 trillion)
14. Russia … 66.5% ($773.6 billion divided by $1.16 trillion)
15. Turkey … 60.6% ($334.7 billion divided by $552.2 billion)
16. Italy … 55% ($1.1 trillion divided by $1.99 trillion)
17. United Kingdom … 54.9% ($1.1 trillion divided by $2 trillion)
18. Indonesia … 54.5% ($255.3 billion divided by $468.4 billion)
19. China … 51.9% ($2.51 trillion divided by $4.83 trillion)
20. France … 51.8% ($1.29 trillion divided by $2.5 trillion).
Richest Countries Least Dependent on Global Trade
The U.S. is joined by Japan and Brazil as wealthy GDP economies seemingly constrained with a relatively small world-trade-to-GDP ratios of less than 30%. Since GDP is the divisor in the ration calculation and was decreased by $821 worth of negative net exports, America would have an even smaller ratio of 23% if its trade deficit for 2008 was lower.
21. Australia … 50.8% ($US383.5 billion in 2008 trade divided by a 2009 GDP of $755.1 billion)
22. Spain … 50.1% ($699.9 billion divided by $1.4 trillion)
23. Venezuela … 48.1% ($141.6 billion divided by $294.3 billion)
24. Iran … 47.3% ($162.3 billion divided by $343 billion)
25. India … 40.6% ($481.9 billion divided by $1.19 trillion)
26. Argentina … 40.3% ($125.1 billion divided by $310.3 billion)
27. Greece … 37.8% ($123.1 billion divided by $325.2 billion)
28. Brazil … 29.2% ($371 billion divided by $1.27 trillion)
29. Japan … 29.1% ($1.45 trillion divided by $5 trillion)
30. United States … 24.3% ($3.4 trillion billion divided by $14 trillion).
Calculating the international-trade ratio after 2009 year-end results are published and final GDP figures become available will give a clearer report card on the direction of the above richest countries in pursuing international trade.
This quick benchmarking exercise does show that America is in dire need of building its made-in-USA exports to the rest of the world. The problem is that products from American branch plants around the world count as exports from those countries, not from the U.S.
More exports shipped from the U.S. homeland will boost net exports and therefore increase America’s wealth as measured by GDP, improve its global-trade ratio and put more money into the pockets of American consumers.
This in turn will encourage American consumers to purchases of imported foreign goods, raising the world-trade ratios for other countries.
President Obama should carefully consider implementing export grants, subsidies and loans to American entrepreneurs – particularly small and medium businesses operating from U.S. soil.
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