U.S. Census Bureau News

U.S. Department of Commerce • Washington, D.C. 20230


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
8:30 A.M. EDT THURSDAY MAY 10, 2012


For information contact:  (301) 763-3251                           				CB12-73
Kristen S. Corwin, Emmanuel O. Omoruyi  
or Caribert Irazi 

U.S. Goods Trade: Imports & Exports by Related-Parties
2011 

The U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce, announced today that in 2011
related-party trade accounted for 40.5 percent ($1,484.5 billion) of total goods trade ($3,667.5 billion).  
Related-party total goods trade is based on consumption imports and total exports.  Related-party trade 
accounted for about 48.3 percent ($1,056.2 billion) of consumption imports ($2,186.9 billion) and about 
28.9 percent ($428.3 billion) of total exports ($1,480.5 billion) (Figure 1).  These percentages are within 
historic U.S. figures.  In 2011, U.S. related-party trade increased by 14.6 percent ($189.4 billion) while 
total trade increased by 15.5 percent ($491.4 billion) from 2010.  Related-party trade includes trade by U.S. 
companies with their subsidiaries abroad as well as trade by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies with their 
parent companies.

	Figure 1.



Overview of U.S. Related-Party Trade 2011

Exhibit 1 shows a snapshot of U.S. related-party imports from selected world areas, and the top-ten countries sorted 
by related-party value.  Exhibit 2 shows related-party exports from selected world areas and the top-ten countries also 
sorted by related-party value.  Exhibits 3 and 4 provide import and export commodity information in terms of the 
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), thereby providing a link to domestic production data.   These exhibits 
show the top-ten three-digit NAICS codes, sorted by related-party values, for imports and exports.  A listing of the countries 
contained in the selected world area groupings can be found in the “Technical Documentation Section” or at 
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/guide/sec5.html.

As shown in Exhibits 3 and 4, the top-ten 3-digit NAICS codes (by value) accounted for 78.1 percent of total imports and 
64.4 percent of total exports.  Related-party trade for the top-ten 3-digit NAICS accounted for 55.0 percent of total consumption 
imports value and 32.7 percent of total exports value.  Computer and electronic products (NAICS 334), transportation equipment 
(NAICS 336), and chemicals (NAICS 325) were the top three goods categories for both directions of trade.  Users should note that 
trade data are product based and do not always correspond completely to the industry based NAICS categories.  For more information 
on the NAICS code, please access the Guide to Foreign Trade Statistics at http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/guide/sec2.html - naics.

Historical Trend

Historically, the relative percent share of related-party trade of 39.8 in 2008 and 41.9 in 2003 marked the low and high values 
respectively over the last ten years (Figure 2).  Over the same time period the value of both related trade and total trade increased 
by 92.7 percent and 98.5 percent respectively.  In dollar terms, from 2002 to 2011, related-party trade increased by over $714.1 billion 
and total trade increased by over $1,819.4 billion.  

	Figure 2.  
	


Interactive Data Website for Related-Party Trade

Detailed related-party trade data from 2002 through 2011 are available online for extraction and analysis at: http://sasweb.ssd.census.gov/relatedparty.  
The website provides output by year, country, and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes at the 2, 3, 4 or 6-digit level.  
The data can be totaled on related, nonrelated, and nonreported categories.  The available file formats for generated output are web based (HTML), 
comma separated values (CSV), or Adobe (PDF).  





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