Tradeflow Study - UNDP Black Sea Trade and Investment Promotion ...

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II. Trade Potential and Opportunities for Growth
II.1. Salient features of intra-BSEC trade in goods
A limited number of key sectors account for most of the intra-regional trade flows in the BSEC
region. In particular, 15 sectors alone represent respectively 83% and 72% of total intra
regional exports and imports. Out of these 15 sectors, 10 are identified as of vital importance
in both exports and imports based on the size flows (see table 3). A number of limitations
exist with analysing trade data in the region. These primarily concern the misclassification of
trade flows, unreported data and informal trade. Box 2 provides a summary of some of the
problems encountered in analysing the trade statistics for the region.
Table 3. Selection of 10 key sectors for intra-regional trade flows (2005)
Rank
HS
Chapter
Description
Intra-BSEC
Exports
(Billion US$)
Intra-BSEC
Imports
(Billion US$ )
1 27 Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products, etc 37.95 12.07
2 72 Iron and steel 7.3 6.46
3 85 Electrical or electronic machinery and equipment 1.32 1.51
4 87 Vehicles other than Railway, Parts and Accessories 1.91 1.48
5 84 Machinery and Mechanical Appliances, including parts 2.52 2.37
6 44 Wood and articles of wood, wood charcoal 1.46 1.04
7 73 Articles of Iron and Steel 1.14 1.64
8 48 Paper & paperboard, articles of pulp, paper and board 2.94 1.78
9 39 Plastics and articles thereof 1.66 1.64
10 60 Knitted or crocheted fabric 0.91 0.84
Source: UNSD COMTRADE (2007)
In Annex 1, a number of tables display the major exports destination and import origin for
each BSEC country and the major exports and imports by product group for each country. Not
surprisingly, the Russian Federation is the leading country for most of the sectors, followed by
Turkey, Greece and Ukraine. Russia and Turkey are the leading exporters for the top ten
sectors. Azerbaijan is a significant exporter for regional fuels, while Serbia and Montenegro is
a significant exporter for paper.
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