Physical commodities trade data

egert · Post by **egert** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 3:37 pm

Hi,

Anyone know about the reliability of UN Comtrade database?

Looking to check some grains/feedstuffs/oils movements/trends within Scandinavia, CEE and CIS. Especially concerned about the exotic stuff, like meals/proteins (Soybeans, Rape, Sunflower, Beetroot etc), since what is happening in general agri is more or less known.

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 5:29 pm

To be honest I've never heard of UN Comtrade database.

Traded ags for 3y and never once herd it mentioned, so it's safe to say it's not a publication that is market moving in any way. However, I guess the data could still possibly be accurate (but perhaps not timely etc).

egert · Post by **egert** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:58 am

Tks Patrik,

Not really interested in market-moving, time critical stuff there. Looking for more general movements etc, e.g how much was country "Legoland" importing product A in 2011, which countries it came from, how much came from country "Timoshenko", then I can see how much did "Timoshenko" sell A to "Legoland" last year. From this, we can already assume who were the sellers, who were the buyers etc...

rp6 · Post by **rp6** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 11:29 am

you've probably already come across it but the USDA's FAS should have some end-year calculations for multilateral trade in commodities. Obviously they do their weekly figures but that's just for the US. I would also expect their accuracy to me much greater than the comtrade.

IMF DOTS might also have this but i'm not sure how well they break it down into commodities, most likely it gets mixed up with other stuff like trade in intermediates.

jungle · Post by **jungle** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 4:02 am

DOTS is only broken down by country.