This classification of commodities based on the SIC represents an organization of numeric two-, three-, and four-digit codes that represent commodities as they relate to their origin of production. In addition five- and seven- digit codes were further developed to provide data on specific products within the SIC structure. These codes are rearranged to an SIC-Base structure for publication in this series. Such an arrangement, when corrolated to the Harmonized System (HS) export codes and import codes facilitates the comparison of U.S. exports and imports with a large body of data on the domestic economy--for example, employment, payroll, inventories, production, shipments, orders, capital assets, and size and location of producing units or other SIC related statistics. This report shows value of exports and imports at the most detailed commodity classification level comparable to output for agriculture, forestry, fishery, minerals, and manufacturing at the SIC five-digit product and the four-digit industry classification levels. Significant trends in exports and imports are shown for two years in each issue. Output data for non-manufacturing areas are derived from U.S. government sources, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce (Bureau of the Census and National Marine Fisheries Service) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Geological Survey. Significant trends in exports and imports related to output were shown for two years in each issue.
This report also contains historical series for exports related to domestic output and imports related to new supply for four-digit SIC-based commodity groups as well as exports, imports, and calculated import duty for two-digit SIC-based commodity groups. Revisions of data for earlier years were shown to the extent such data were available. Some output data were revised each year but generally did not result in significant percentage changes. The most recent data year, by nature, contains the preliminary data.
Editions from 1990 on differ from earlier editions in significant respects. Comparisons for manufactured commodities were shown only at the two-, four- and five-digit levels. Comparisons at the seven-digit level were shown in the Current Industrial Reports on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Historical time series analysis of export and import data may not be entirely comparable to earlier publication editions due the revisions of the SIC in 1987 and the adoption of the new Harmonized System (HS) coding system as a basis for import and export classification in 1989. Some new domestic production SIC codes for agriculture and mining were added where data were found to be directly comparable to what was available in the HS system.
Chart 2 shows the top fifteen four-digit SIC-based commodity groups based on the most recent reported annual value of U.S. imports for consumption.
Chart 3 shows the top ten principal import countries by value of U.S. imports and exports.
Chart 4 shows percent of total annual U.S. imports for consumption of mineral and manufactured commodities for the leading six countries of import.
Table 2 shows value of domestic output, exports of domestic merchandise, export rank, imports for consumption, import rank, and percentage relationships for detailed agriculture, forestry, and fishery commodities for previous two years in Table 2A. Mineral commodities, Table 2B, and manufactured commodities, Table 2C, show the same information but only at the four- and five-digit levels.
Value of exports of domestic merchandise and the percent of exports to domestic output for four-digit SIC-based commodity groups for the previous four years are shown in Table 3A. Although most of the lines represent complete four-digit commodity groups, some lines represent necessary combinations which may be the major portion, but not the whole, of the commodity groups. Similarly, value of imports for consumption and the percent of imports to new supply for four-digit SIC-based commodity groups for the previous four years are shown in Table 3B.
A distribution of total exports of domestic merchandise, imports for consumption, and calculated import duty, by SIC-based commodity division, for the years 1958 through the present is shown in Table 4.
The following abbreviations and symbols are used in this publication:
A Exports Exceed Output
* Revised Data
- Represents Zero
D Disclosure (See Appendix B)
NA Not Available
n.e.c. Not Elsewhere Classified
n.s.k. Not Specified by Kind
S Below Publication Standards
X Not Applicable
Z Between $-0.05 million and $+0.05 million
(or -0.5 and +0.5 percent), but not equal to zero
The 1990/89, 1991/90, 1992/91 and 1993/92 electronic data (ZIP) files are available to the public for downloading from this site. The series was discontinued because of a significant decrease in the Census Bureau's budget in 1996 and the conversion of the SIC to the new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) starting with the 1997 production data. Printed copies of these and other related publications are available by calling Customer Services at (301) 763-4100.
Import
Statistics
Export
Statistics
Annual Survey of
Manufactures
Foreign Trade Division
Last revised Monday, 13-Mar-2006 17:28:13 EST
