ITC Market Analysis Tools (MAT) Survey results

Geneva, September 2010

Objective of the ITC Market Analysis Tools survey

To monitor relevance, utilisation and performance of market analysis tools: Trade Map, Market Access Map, Investment Map and Product Map To provide insights on the impact of ITC market analysis tools To obtain feedback for future improvements of the tools

The survey in figures

Questionnaires sent to users who have visited one or more tools at least twice.

60 414 emails sent (in 3 languages)

1 reminder + 1 popup upon logging into a tool

The survey was available online for 3 weeks between June 4th and June 27th. It consisted of a total of 17 questions

5 144 answers (i.e. answer rate = 8.5%)

4 558 usable answers (i.e. answer rate = 7.5%)

Users activities
25
20 Proportion (in %) 15 10 5 0 20

17

16

14 9 8 6 4 3 3

MAT users are mainly: Universities and students (30%) Enterprises (28%) Governments (17%) Trade Support Institutions (TSI) (9%)

Significant but weak link between the activity and the location:
Latin America: - universities and students (40%) - governments (13%) Africa: - governments (27%) - Trade Support Institutions (TSI) (19%)

Rating the influence of MAT*...

... on the service you deliver
* question not asked to entreprises

Scale:

25

50

75

100

Negative

No influence

Weak

Positive

Very positive

Results:
88

Average score = 84 / 100

score /100

86 84 82 80 78 76 74 72 Latin Amer. & C. Africa Arab states Eastern Europe & central Asia Asia & Pacific Rest of the world 86

Answers vary depending on the location:

Market analysis tools have more influence in Latin America and the Caribbean than in Asia and Eastern Europe.

84

83

82

81 77

Enterprises rating the influence of MAT*...

... on your import or export activity
Average score = 73 / 100
* Question asked to enterprises only

Answers vary depending on the location: Market analysis tools have from far more influence in Latin America and the Caribbean.
score /100

78 76 74 72 70 68 77 70

66
64 62 60

70

70

68

67

The size of the enterprise is irrelevant.

Latin Amer. Eastern & Europe & Caribbean central Asia

Asia & Pacific

Africa

Arab states Rest of the world

Enterprises trading activities

73% of enterprises declare exporting/importing either goods or services, of which: products and services: 11% products but not services: 9% services but not products: 5% did not answer to services: 40% did not answer to products: 8% 10% declare not trading internationally remaining 17%: no answer or dont know

Tools and companies turnover

What is the size (in US$) of your import/export turnover for which the ITC market analysis tools have helped you to make your decision?
Question asked to companies who declared: exporting and/or importing, found positive or very positive influence of the tools on their import/export activity. 1411 enterprises in the sample 676 were asked the question 318 answers 299 declared a positive turnover

for a total of 2.7 billion US$ overall (excluding an outlier of 1 billion US$).

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Tools and companies turnover

299 enterprises declared a positive turnover Average = 12.4 million US$ (standard deviation > 69 million US$) Median = 200 000 US$ 1 outlier: 1 billion US$ (removed from the analysis)

Without the outlier and assuming 0 US$ for the 1112* enterprises that have not declared a positive turnover:
Average = 2 million US$ (over the 1411 enterprises) The larger the company the bigger the turnover: On average: Large company = 3 x SMEs

* Including the enterprises for which the question has not been asked

Generalizing to the MAT user database: Total turnover around 38 billion US$

Average turnover and number of enterprises in the sample

by region and size of company
600

11

Latin America and the Caribbean

500

400

Number of enterprises

300

Large Cie SME

200

Latin America and the Caribbean Eastern Europe and Central Asia Asia and the Pacific
100

Arab States Africa

Asia and the Pacific

Rest of the world Africa

0 0 1,000,000

Rest of the world

Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Arab States

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

7,000,000

8,000,000

9,000,000

Average turnover ($)

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Impact of ITC market analysis tools

Some examples out of a sample of over 2000 answers
Enterprises:
Success export to Bahamas after company thought it would be impossible to export due to import duties. ITC helped determine that which countries were currently exporting to Bahamas, and that they were subject to the same import duties. The result was a successfull atempt to export to the Bahamas. Efectuamos un estudio del mercado ruso para la exportacin de caf Cubita tostado en grano y molido donde a partir de las herramientas que ustedes nos proporcionan nos permitieron conocer los niveles de crecimiento de las importaciones de Caf por Rusia, sus principales suministradores, las tendencias de crecimiento, los niveles de aranceles etc, dicho estudio culmino con la materializacin de una transaccin en el mes de Febrero por valor de 500000 USD ITC data revealed the importance of Indias imports for our Polymer which we did not expect. This set us to work on the market.

Governments:
I am a co-author of Syrian Agricultural Trade Report, which is an annual report. I study the markets of 7 main agricultural commodities. Without the crucial assistance of ITC market analysis, I wouldn't be able to study these markets. We teach a course on trade diplomacy to members of the Mexican foreign service, and other Mexican public officials around the world. ITC market tools offer the necessary data to the planning and decision-making process of our trade and financial promotion.

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Impact of ITC market analysis tools (continued)

Governments:
In negotiation of Bilateral trade agreement, we participated in the discussion for identifying the new 18 products to enter into the Bangladesh market. We study the products using ITC market analysis online tools to ascertain the trade advantage for both countries.

Trade support institutions:

We are an export promotion organization- the market analysis tools provided by ITC are absolutely necessary for informed decisions on strategies and modalities we adopt for export promotions programs L'outil d'analyse des marchs du CCI est devenu un outil incontournable pour notre service. Comme impact, nous pouvons citer la possibilit pour mon service d'identifier les marchs d'exportation de tel ou tel produit. La rapidit avec laquelle nous traitons les demandes d'informations fait de notre service, une IAC trs sollicit dans ce sens. In looking at Mexico as an export outlet for livestock, and lobster, we needed the import duty and any other taxes that are applied on these products. ITC tools was useful as it allowed us to make a decision of whether it was useful to pursue the market.

Universities:
I teach bachelor students (Business Administration) how to start searching international markets, how to build international strategies, etc. All your tools are very useful for these purposes. I work at an exporter company of fruit juices and concentrates as well as frozen fruit. Additionally I m a teacher at the University. In both cases ITC market analysis tools have impacted positively my work. At the export company we build our strategy considering information provided by Trade Map, Product Map and the other tools. At the university I teach to my student how to select international markets, evidently part of the course is strongly based on your tools.

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ITC trainings reach a small number of people

Less than 20% of our users have been trained. Trainees firstly come from governments.

The strongest effort is made with TSIs, 32% of which are trained.
Accent is clearly made on the training in Africa Number of trained people by activity
250 200 150 100 50 0

Participation to a training by region

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 33% 21% 20% 19%

17%

9%

67%

79%

80%

81%

83%

91%
Yes No

Africa

Arab States

Asia & Pacific

Latin Eastern Rest of the America & Europe & world C. central Asia

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Trainings have impact

Rating the influence of training in improving users capacity to analyse market data:
Weak, 4.4% Positive, 50.3% Very positive, 37.7% Don't know, 0.5% n.a., 0.5%

No influence, 1.1% Negative, 0.1%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

n.a. correspond to the answer: I do not analyse market data; blank space correspond to no-answer.

Statistical analysis shows: Participating in a training has a significant influence (+2 points on average over 100) on the following ratings: finding the information, find it useful.

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Visiting is finding useful information

The example of Investment Map:
Investment Map

Very useful

100

95

The more often you visit,

day

90

85

the more you find the information, the more useful it is.

80

week

useful information

75

month
70

Useful

year
65

Similar results for other tools.

60 55

once

dnk

50 33 38 43 48 53 58 63 68 73

Sometimes

findable inform ation

Almost always

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Found information is useful information

Very useful
100

Positioning of the tools

83

78

Trade Map

All the tools are performing well: the marks are all above 50 points. Trade Map is the best performing tool, especially in terms of usefulness.
scales used for the rating:

73

Market Access Map Product Map

68

Useful
63

Investment Map

useful information

58

53

do you find the information you are looking for?

48

0 Not at all

33 Sometimes

66 Almost always

100 Always

43

38

How useful do you find [the] information?

0 33 Somewhat useful 66 Useful 100 Very useful
33 39 45 51 57 63 69

Somewhat useful

33

Sometimes

findable information

Almost always

Not useful

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usage probability 35% 30% 25% 20%

The basket of a user

People tend to use several tools.

15% 10% 20% 16% 24%

32%

5%
usage probability 100% 90% 80% 0% 1 2 3 4 Number of tools used

e.g. 20% of the users use only 2 tools.

70%
60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Trade Map Market Access Product Map Map Tool used Investment Map 92% 70%

The most frequent combinations are: 1. 2. 3. 4. All tools (32%) All tools but InvMap (15%) Trade Map only (15%) Trade Map + MAcMap (14%)

54%
42%

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I want more!
To the question Which additional features would you like to see included in?, the following points came out: Trade Map: data update new indicators information on enterprises Market Access Map: qualitative data already available data (e.g. ad-valorem equivalents) data update improved navigation Product Map: data coverage data update

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Additional comments regarding MAT

Main comments Thank you, tools are helpful

Keep access free for developing countries

More training activities on the tools More update We are not well informed. Tools are not widely disseminated