Trade in 2012 did not break the traditional hugely unbalanced market place layout. Globally, exports must necessarily match imports (except for small discrepancies due to the way items like re-exports are accounted for) : one economy's exports are another one's imports. However, the global balance comprises many unbalanced country trade accounts, which is an undesirable situation.

Export based economies, such as Germany and China achieved huge trade balances and comfortable terms of trade. Also achieving trade surpluses we find the lucky oil and gas rich countries : Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Norway, Nigeria, Angola, Iran, Iraq or Venezuela. But it is not required to be a resource-rich economy to perform well trade-wise : the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Korea or the Czech Republic, all comparatively resource destitute economies, succeeded in overcoming the resource shortage by deploying effective industrial and service craftsmanship, and earning a place amongst the terms of trade top performers.

The scatter chart shows in red the regression line of imports on exports. Those economies that are to the right of (below) the red line finished 2012 with a surplus of exports on imports. Big economies such as Germany, China, and Russia appear in this area, as well as oil-rich nations such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Norway, and some effective exporters like Korea, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

On the left of (above) the regression line, appear those countries that imported more merchandises than they were able to export, thus registering a merchandise trade deficit. The United States, are as usual out-of-scale with a merchandise deficit of 788 $US billion (current). Other important economies follow suit : France, the United Kingdom, Japan and India also have a big trade balance problem.

Sources: WTO - World Trade Organization.

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