BACI is updated every year in January.
Even though the source of our data is Comtrade, we perform various operations to improve this data, that are expected to create discrepancies between BACI and Comtrade. See the CEPII working paper for more details.
Values and quantities of the flows taking place during the last year present in BACI may be substantially revised in the subsequent version. This is because we download our source data (Comtrade) in January, and the last year may not yet be complete at that time. More precisely, it is likely that some trade flows will be missing, or reported by only one of the countries instead of the two of them. For more information on the timing of Comtrade updates, visit their data availability page.
Yes, it may happen, most likely because of changes in the Comtrade source data. Indeed, Comtrade sometimes revises trade flows that occured in the past. Also, we regularly implement slight methodological improvements to the construction of BACI. Therefore, different versions of BACI may provide a different information for the same trade flow, and users should not mix versions of BACI.
BACI is distributed under the Etalab Open Licence 2.0, which means that any use is authorized, provided the source is mentionned. Mentioning BACI and the CEPII is an appropriate reference, ideally a link to the webpage can be added.
The Harmonized System is the standard nomenclature for international trade, used by all custom services. This is therefore the most natural choice for trade data. Users wishing to merge BACI with data expressed in alternative classifications can use the concordance tables provided by the World Bank.
The UN does not disseminate trade statistics referring to Taiwan. Therefore, COMTRADE and BACI do not have any trade data for Taiwan as such. Nevertheless, trade data of ‘Asia, not elsewhere specified’ (iso 490), is a good proxy for trade of Taiwan. In theory trade data for territories belonging to Asia, but not specified by country, could end up in this category, but in practice, only trade of Taiwan is included under this code, except for a couple of reporters.
We have the same geographic coverage as Comtrade. This corresponds to most of the existing countries. A list of the countries available in BACI can be downloaded here.
No, the BACI trade flows files are too large to be opened with Excel, or another spreadsheet software.
Do not hesitate to send an e-mail to baci@cepii.fr. If you write us to warn about an issue, please indicate the version of the database that you are using (HS revision and version identifier).