Get trade data from the UN Comtrade API

This function queries the UN Comtrade API to retrieve international trade data. It allows for detailed specification of the query, including the type of data (goods or services), frequency (annual or monthly), commodity classification, flow direction, and more. By providing everything for certain parameters, you can query all possible values. The function is opinionated in that it already verifies certain parameters for you and is more than a pure wrapper around the API.

Usage

ct_get_data(
  type = "goods",
  frequency = "A",
  commodity_classification = "HS",
  commodity_code = "TOTAL",
  flow_direction = c("Import", "Export", "Re-export", "Re-import"),
  reporter = "all_countries",
  partner = "World",
  start_date = NULL,
  end_date = NULL,
  process = TRUE,
  tidy_cols = TRUE,
  verbose = FALSE,
  primary_token = get_primary_comtrade_key(),
  mode_of_transport = "TOTAL modes of transport",
  partner_2 = "World",
  customs_code = "C00",
  update = FALSE,
  requests_per_second = 10/60,
  extra_params = NULL,
  cache = FALSE
)

Arguments

type

The type of returned trade data. Possible values: 'goods' for trade in goods, 'services' for trade in services. Default: 'goods'.

frequency

The frequency of returned trade data. Possible values: 'A' for annual data, 'M' for monthly data. Default: 'A'.

commodity_classification

The trade classification scheme. Possible values for goods: c('HS','S1','S2','S3','S4','SS','B4','B5'); for services: c('EB02','EB10','EB10S','EB'). Default: 'HS'.

commodity_code

The commodity code(s) or everything for all possible codes. See comtradr::ct_get_ref_table('HS') for possible values. Default: 'TOTAL' (sum of all commodities).

flow_direction

The direction of trade flows or everything. Possible values can be found in ct_get_ref_table('flow_direction'). These are implemented case-insensitive, 'import' and 'Import' are equivalent. Default: c('import','export','re-export','re-import').

reporter

Reporter ISO3 code(s), everything or all_countries. See comtradr::country_codes or comtradr::ct_get_ref_table('reporter') for possible values. all_countries returns all countries without aggregates everything returns all possible parameters. Default: 'all_countries'.

partner

Partner ISO3 code(s), everything or all_countries. See comtradr::country_codes for possible values. all_countries returns all countries without aggregates everything returns all possible parameters, incl. aggregates like World. Default: 'World' (all partners as an aggregate).

start_date

The start date of the query. Format: yyyy for yearly, yyyy-mm for monthly.

end_date

The end date of the query. Format: yyyy for yearly, yyyy-mm for monthly. Max: 12 years after start date for annual data, one year for monthly data.

process

If TRUE, returns a data.frame with results. If FALSE, returns the raw httr2 request. Default: TRUE.

tidy_cols

If TRUE, returns tidy column names. If FALSE, returns raw column names. Default: TRUE.

verbose

If TRUE, sends status updates to the console. If FALSE, runs functions quietly. Default: FALSE.

primary_token

Your primary UN Comtrade API token. Default: stored token from comtradr::set_primary_comtrade_key.

mode_of_transport

Text code of mode of transport or everything for all possible parameters. See ct_get_ref_table(dataset_id = 'mode_of_transport') for possible values. Default: 'TOTAL modes of transport' (TOTAL).

partner_2

Partner 2 ISO3 code(s), everything or all_countries. See comtradr::country_codes for possible values. all_countries returns all countries without aggregates everything returns all possible parameters, incl. aggregates like World. Default: 'World' (all partners as an aggregate).

customs_code

Customs Code ID or everything for all possible parameters. See ct_get_ref_table(dataset_id = 'customs_code') for possible values. Default: 'C00' (TOTAL).

update

If TRUE, downloads possibly updated reference tables from the UN. Default: FALSE.

requests_per_second

Rate of requests per second executed, usually specified as a fraction, e.g. 10/60 for 10 requests per minute, see req_throttle() for details.

extra_params

Additional parameters to the API, passed as query parameters without checking. Please provide a named list to this parameter. Default: NULL.

cache

A logical value to determine, whether requests should be cached or not. If set to True, rappdirs::user_cache_dir() is used to determine the location of the cache. Use the .Renviron file to set the R_USER_CACHE_DIR in order to change this location. Default: False.

Value

A data.frame with trade data or, if process = F, a httr2 response object.

Details

The UN Comtrade database provides a repository of official international trade statistics and relevant analytical tables. It contains annual trade statistics starting from 1988 and monthly trade statistics since 2000 for goods data

Parameters that accept everything will query all possible values. For example, setting commodity_code = 'everything' will retrieve data for all commodity codes. This can be useful for broad queries but may result in large datasets.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # interactive()
# Query goods data for China's trade with Argentina and Germany in 2019
ct_get_data(
  type = "goods",
  commodity_classification = "HS",
  commodity_code = "TOTAL",
  reporter = "CHN",
  partner = c("ARG", "DEU"),
  start_date = "2019",
  end_date = "2019",
  flow_direction = "Import",
  partner_2 = "World",
  verbose = TRUE
)

# Query all commodity codes for China's imports from Germany in 2019
ct_get_data(
  commodity_code = "everything",
  reporter = "CHN",
  partner = "DEU",
  start_date = "2019",
  end_date = "2019",
  flow_direction = "Import"
)

# Query all commodity codes for China's imports from Germany
# from January to June of 2019
ct_get_data(
  commodity_code = "everything",
  reporter = "CHN",
  partner = "DEU",
  start_date = "2019",
  end_date = "2019",
  flow_direction = "import"
)
}