Trade promotion and market research activities depend on up-to-date and reliable trade statistics in order to assess the structure and trends of imports and exports in values and quantities by product and country.

The COMTRADE database of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) is by far the most comprehensive source of trade statistics as it covers over 110 reporting countries with time series starting from 1962 (SITC1), 1977 (SITC2) or 1988 (SITC3 correlated to HS codes). ITC bases the vast majority of its statistical applications on COMTRADE data.
 
The UNSD holds the copyright to COMTRADE data. All rights reserved. Users cannot disseminate COMTRADE raw data without the express permission of the UNSD.
 
On-line access to this database can be obtained from: United Nations Statistics Division, New York, USA. Fax: +1-212-963-9851, e-mail address: tradestat@un.org