Sino-Arabica Data Observatory / Trade Map / Methodology
Trade Data Methodology
A note regarding the data sources, definitions, and adjustments behind the figures presented across Sino-Arabica’s Mideast-China trade map and profiles.
1 · Data Sources
1.1 — Bilateral Trade Flows with China (China Customs)
Raw-value bilateral trade flows between Mideast economies and China are drawn from China’s General Administration of Customs (GACC), which reports in US dollar terms the goods China exports to and imports from its trade partners. In the interest of simplicity, the Observatory communicates these figures without transformation, so that for all USD-valued trade flows:
China’s imports from a Mideast economy = that economy’s exports to China
1.2 — World Totals (IMF IMTS + ITG)
Trade dependence ratios are calculated as the proportion of a Mideast economy’s trade with China relative to that economy’s overall trade with the world (see Sections 2 and 3 below for more detail). GACC supplies the numerator of that dependence ratio, while the primary source for the denominator is the IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (IMTS), which reports annual merchandise flows in USD. Where IMTS coverage is incomplete or produces denominators incompatible with numerators drawn from GACC, world totals are taken instead from the IMF’s International Trade in Goods (ITG) dataset. This is notably the case in several years for Oman, Yemen, and Kuwait, where export dependence on China as computed for these countries under IMTS would exceed 100 percent.
2 · Price-Basis Adjustments (CIF / FOB)
The national customs authorities whose reporting informs the IMF data sets, broadly speaking, use two distinct accounting methods to record exports versus imports: Free-on-Board (FOB) for the former, and Cost, Insurance, and Freight (CIF) for the latter. CIF figures exceed FOB figures for the same shipment, as CIF incorporates international freight and insurance into import cost while FOB excludes them from the corresponding export. Comparing these two measures of a shipment’s cost without adjustment would overstate import-side flows relative to export-side flows. To achieve mutual comparability when calculating dependence ratios, the Observatory thus reverts CIF to FOB using a single fixed factor:
World-total imports drawn from IMTS or ITG are converted from CIF to FOB before use as denominators in the calculation of import dependence on Chinese goods, and before being summed with exports to produce total-trade denominators; export values, already on an FOB basis, pass through unchanged. Dependence ratios are computed only after these adjustments have been made. The conversion factor is derived from OECD (2024), CIF/FOB Margins: Insights on Global Transport and Insurance Costs of Merchandise Trade. OECD Statistics Working Papers.
3 · Definition of Trade Dependence
The Observatory computes three indicators of a Mideast economy’s trade dependence on China, defined as the share of its trade with China over its total trade with the world:
4 · Coverage
The Observatory covers twenty-three economies across what is here referred to as the Mideast, grouped editorially into three regions: Gulf (Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen), Levant (Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Türkiye), and Africa (Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia).
Two regional economies fall outside the methodological framework set out in Sections 1–3 and are handled in the following manner:
Palestine (West Bank and Gaza)
GACC coverage of trade with Palestine is limited and inconsistent. Both bilateral flows with China and world totals are therefore derived entirely from IMF IMTS, with no recourse to GACC or to the CIF-to-FOB conversion described in Section 2 above.
Western Sahara
Neither IMTS nor ITG reports trade data for Western Sahara, and while the territory is recognized within GACC records as a distinct economic entity, coverage is too sparse to support a bilateral profile. It is therefore excluded from the Observatory’s data series.
5 · Computational Notes
This section documents two recurring computational choices.
Year-on-Year Change
The year-on-year change charts presented in the bilateral and aggregate profiles plot each month’s value against the same calendar month one year earlier. Because raw monthly growth rates can swing sharply for reasons unrelated to underlying trade dynamics such as lumpy commodity shipments, single-partner fluctuations, and reporting-cycle quirks, all such series are smoothed with a trailing moving average.
By default, a 3-month moving average is applied. For economies whose 3-month series exceeds ±300%, at any point in the range reported, a 6-month moving average is used in its place. The window applied is recorded in the footnote beneath each chart.
IMTS-to-ITG Fallback
As noted in Section 1.2, the primary source for world-trade denominators in the calculation of trade-dependence ratios on the trade map is the IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (IMTS). In several country-years, however, IMTS coverage of an economy’s total exports is materially incompatible with the GACC bilateral evidence. In certain cases, combining IMTS-reported world exports with GACC-reported bilateral exports yields an export-dependence ratio above 100 percent, a physically impossible result.
Where this occurs, the world-trade denominator for that country-year is replaced with the corresponding figure from the IMF International Trade in Goods (ITG) dataset. In the current dataset, the substitution is applied to Oman and Yemen (2021–2024) and to Kuwait (2021, 2023, 2024 for exports; 2021–2024 for imports). This affects only the dependence ratios shown on the trade map; the bilateral flow series on the country and aggregate profiles are sourced directly from GACC and thus unaffected.