UNCTADstat has been hard at work building a series of innovative statistics tools which present fascinating insights in a new way.
Statistics is not all number crunching. It’s also about presenting information in novel and meaningful ways to tell a story and help make decisions.
UNCTAD’s statisticians know this well – and to kickstart 2019, the UNCTADstat team has launched three new tools to support other statisticians, economists, and experts interested in comparative data, indices and indicators, and trade in services.
Interactive Data Exploration
A new interactive data exploration tool allows users to understand and examine the Revealed Comparative Advantage of countries around the world.
Data is presented visually and allows users to manipulate, play with and explore the data.
Users can find out which countries have comparative advantages according to certain products or product groupings.
The tool also displays export values per product grouping and drills down into the detail of product-sub groups to highlight, for example, the performance fertilizers in the chemicals product group.
"Users can easily compare countries and learn lessons from the data in a way that is visual and easy to understand and present," says UNCTADstat’s head, Steve MacFeely.
Best indicators
Next up is a nifty explainer tool. UNCTADstat’s Indicators Explained portal is a site for learning.
So, if you have ever wondered what an export concentration index was but were afraid to ask, this is the place to go.
Simply visit the portal and a series of indicators and indexes and real-life data sets are at your fingertips.
All explanation sheets are available in French and English. UNCTADstat will be adding to the list of explained indicators throughout 2019.
"Our focus is on adding new explanation sheets on product concentration indices and trade dissimilarity indices," Mr. MacFeely said.
Thus far there are three indices which are explained: import and export market concentration indices, and an export product concentration index.
Big bulletin
The exponential growth of services globally has a major impact on all economies but represents untold opportunity for developing nations.
The new quarterly Trade-in-Services Statistics bulletin is a unique tool for analyzing the status quo to inform future decision-making on investments and market opportunities in the services sector.
The report monitors the latest quarterly growth in global trade-in-services, highlights the main regional trends, and identifies the world’s top traders.
The underlying country-level statistics, covering some 150 economies, are downloadable on UNCTADstat.
