Trade in a Bottle: Identifying Import Bottlenecks in International Trade

Trade in a Bottle

Method & data sources

Data source

All trade data presented in this application has been calculated based on data retrieved from the UN Comtrade Database, maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division. UN Comtrade is the most comprehensive global trade database, covering merchandise trade flows reported by countries worldwide.

Method

For each importing country (reporter) and HS product code, the application:

  1. Retrieves import flows (flowCode=M) from UN Comtrade API (JSON format), filtered to the “TOTAL CPC” customs procedure (customsCode=C00) with mode of transport set to TOTAL (motCode=0) and partner 2 set to World (partner2Code=0)
  2. Excludes reimport records — trade flows where the partner country is the same as the reporting country (i.e. reporterCode = partnerCode). Such records represent goods returning to the country of origin and do not reflect genuine import dependencies.
  3. Calculates the import share of each partner country as a percentage of total import (partner “World”) for that product.
  4. Identifies extreme bottlenecks where a single partner’s share ≥ 80% and the import value ≥ 10,000,000 USD.

Only trade flows with an import share ≥ 10% and value ≥ 10,000 USD are stored in the database.

Critical Goods

The default EU list of HS codes corresponds to the goods specified in the European Critical Raw Materials Act and was compiled based on Annex 2 — Trade codes (CN 2023) associated with Critical Raw Materials from: Georgitzikis, K., Trade codes of non-food, non-fuel raw materials and their products, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023, doi:10.2760/923241, JRC136041.

The WTO critical minerals list is based on the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade in Critical Minerals (TiCM) database.

The WTO AI-enabling goods list is based on the WTO 2025 World Trade Report on Making trade and AI work together to the benefit of all.

The UNCTAD critical minerals list is based on the UNCTAD SDG Pulse 2025 HS code classification for critical minerals.

HS code levels

Analysis is available at three levels of the Harmonized System (HS) classification:

  • 6-digit (subheadings) — the most detailed level
  • 4-digit (headings) — intermediate aggregation
  • 2-digit (chapters) — broad product categories