Commerce international

Seasonally adjusted world export volumes increased by 1.4% in the first quarter of 2026, broadly unchanged from the 1.4% growth recorded in the previous quarter.

In developing economies, export growth slowed to 1.4%, from 3.9% in Q4 2025, remaining positive.

In developed economies, exports increased by 1.1%, following a 0.4% contraction in the previous quarter, marking a return to positive export growth.

In 2025, the region with the most diversified exports over products was Europe, as indicated by a product concentration index of exports of 0.06. Western Asia and Northern Africa (0.26) was the region in which exports were most concentrated on few products. Exports of Oceania (0.24) and Sub-Saharan Africa (0.21) were slightly more dispersed. At the level of individual economies, Sint Maarten (0.93), Micronesia (0.87), Iraq (0.85), Burkina Faso (0.84) and the Faroe Islands (0.84) were the exporters with least diversification of exports over products.

Looking at the geographic distribution of exports across economies of origin, manufactured products have been showing the highest concentration of global supply since 2005. In 2025, the market concentration index of exports of that group of goods stood at 0.20. The groups of fuels and of ores, metals, precious stones and non-monetary gold ranked second and third, with index values of 0.15, where the latter recorded a considerable increase in market concentration in the last year. Food is the product group of which exports have been the most dispersed by economy of origin over the last decade, with a continuously decreasing trend in market concentration, showing an index score of 0.11 in 2025.

For the 2022–2024 average, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) recorded an overall Theil export concentration index of 5.14, well above 3.26 for other developing economies and 2.89 for developed economies. Higher Theil concentration indicates that LDCs' exports are less diversified than other countries.

Decomposition of the index shows that market concentration is the main driver of this pattern. LDCs’ market concentration index reached 3.27, compared with 2.27 in other developing economies and 2.08 in developed economies, indicating a strong reliance on a limited number of destination markets. Product concentration is also markedly higher in LDCs (1.87) than elsewhere (0.99 and 0.81), reflecting dependence on a narrow range of export products.

Overall, LDCs face a double diversification gap, across both products and markets, leaving their export earnings more exposed to external shocks.

In 2024, the terms of trade declined by 1.1% in developing economies driven by a 2.2% deterioration in developing economies Asia and Oceania. By contrast, developed economies saw a moderate gain of 0.6% from the previous year. 
Among developing regions, the most significant improvements were observed in developing Africa and developing Americas registering 4.7% and 2.9% increases, respectively. 
Least Developed Countries recorded the highest improvement with 5.1% increase compared to 2023. An improvement in the terms of trade means a country can obtain more imports for the same amount of exports, effectively increasing its real income and reducing economic strain.