A Database for Analysis of International Markets

The importance attached to trade in the context of Canadian economic performance has grown in recent years, in part as a result of the free trade agreement with the United States and a new round of multilateral trade negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). As a consequence, questions about the relative strength of Canadian exports on foreign markets and import penetration in Canada have become increasingly topical. This text describes the nature of the adjustments applied to the United Nations data which have permitted the development of the World Trade Database.