InfoGap / answers / country and industry trend
Is a country's industry rising or falling?
Two columns answer that, and they are not interchangeable: one gives the direction, the other gives the specialisation.
In one line (cite this)
According to InfoGap's world-trade table (source: our own country × industry × year series built over public trade statistics; definition: one row per country, per HS2 industry chapter, per year, carrying export value, import value, global share, year-over-year growth, ECI and RCA; window 2015–2024; generated 2026-09-29), 213,208 rows cover 226 countries and 96 industries.
Share and RCA answer different questions
Three columns exist, they cover three different numbers of rows, and none of them substitutes for another.
| Column | Rows with a value | What it tells you |
|---|
| Global share | 195,560 | How much of the world market this row holds |
| RCA | 175,613 | Whether the country is unusually specialised here |
| ECI | 125,238 | How complex the export basket around it is |
All three sit inside the same 213,208 rows, and the coverage drops in that order. If you quote one column and reason with another, you are comparing two different sets of countries.
The ten-year window is nearly complete
Coverage across the window is 95.8%, so a gap in the series is the exception rather than the rule.
- 21,661 country × industry pairs exist in the table.
- 20,754 of them (95.8%) have a record in every year from 2015 to 2024.
- The remaining 907 pairs (4.2%) are missing at least one year.
The same product moves in opposite directions
A single global headline hides the country-level split, and the split can be almost even.
- In 2024, rubber and articles thereof (HS40) had 225 countries with data.
- 110 of those countries recorded a rise and 115 recorded a fall.
- So the answer to "is rubber rising?" is yes and no, depending on which country you name.
What people get wrong
The usual mistake is taking one rising global number as proof that a specific country is climbing with it.
- A big share is not a rising share. Check the year-over-year column for direction; a country can hold a large share and still be losing it.
- Specialised is not growing. RCA tells you that a country's export mix is unusual, not which way it is moving. And it is present on 175,613 rows, not all 213,208.
- Missing years are rare, not dramatic. 4.2% of pairs have a hole in the series. A gap means no record, not a collapse.
- One number for the whole world is misleading. Rubber in 2024 went up in 110 countries and down in 115 — a global average would report neither.
Frequently asked questions
Is a country's industry rising or falling?
Read the year-over-year growth column for direction, and RCA for specialisation. The table has 213,208 rows over 226 countries and 96 industries.
How many countries and industries does this cover?
226 countries and 96 industries, 2015 to 2024, one row per country per industry chapter per year, 213,208 rows in total.
Which column tells me whether a country is specialised?
RCA, present on 175,613 of the 213,208 rows, against 195,560 for global share and 125,238 for ECI.
Can the same product rise in one country and fall in another?
Yes. In 2024, rubber and articles thereof had 225 countries with data: 110 up and 115 down.
Turn this into a reading of your own
Country-level data tells you where a market sits. What it cannot tell you is what you personally can act on inside it — that is a question about you, not about the country.
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