Trade Balance

A. Relevance and sustainability context

A.1 Policy relevance

Relevant and well known economic indicator, which gained importance in the resilience and sovereignty debates. It considers whether Germany is relying on other parts of the world for using biomass and bio-based products. Moreover, trade data can be used for additional analysis such as export specialization.

A.2 Sustainability and / or comparative evaluation options

Comparison to other countries in total and per product groups or sub-sectors in principle possible, as well as trend in time, without other data source is needed.

B. Data availability

B.1 Stage of development

There have been mostly partial attempts to measure the trade balance (e.g. for biomass). The identification of bioeconomy in trade codes partly assumption based.

B.2 Data sources

Basically UN Comtrade or other Datasets and then bio-based products have to be identified there. First calculation by Kroll, Wydra et al. 2022, moreover "Harmonitor" project for some groups as well.

B.3 Coverage over time and replicability

Time Span is feasible to go back e.g. 10-20 years (depends a bit on how many changes in trade codes have been made).

B.4 Coverage across scales and sectors; compatibility

International reporting is possible, regional reporting is more difficult

Sectoral breakdown is possible

C. Considerations for operationalization

C.1 Feasibility: Fit for monitoring

To delineate bioeconomy in trade statistics with limitations

Unclear whether differentiation in certain “groups of products” to get further info on a semi-level (in-between of total and details products) will be feasible

C.2 Institutions

Fraunhofer ISI

C.3 Future prospects

Continuation possible

C.4 Costs, considerations and reproducibility

No extra costs

C.5 Potential for automation

Scripts

C.6 Presentation options and breakdown / sub-indicator needs

Different indicators imaginable, such as trade balance, exports, imports or further indicators of dependence thinkable

C.7 Potential for scenario integration

Highly relevant, German interaction in global trade flows is important for future development of bioeconomy.

C.8 Interlinkages and alignment with other monitoring activities

JRC monitoring includes trade data, but has nothing published yet.

Theme: Economy
Sub-categories: Trade
Tier: I
Development stage: unknown
Robustness: unknown
Source: Fraunhofer ISI, Sven Wydra

Legend

Tier

Tier I describes the 30 core, priority indicators defined by the project that are highly relevant to represent a specific thematic area and which together with other Tier I indicators forms a systemic perspective of the various risks, opportunities and trade-offs within the Bioeconomy.

Tier II describes explanatory indicators that are of high priority and help to provide more specific information on trends within specific thematic areas.

Stage of development

Established:
Indicators which are already reported in other official monitoring systems

Semi-established:
Indicators which are developed by e.g. federal research institutes as part of long-term and regularly updated initiatives

New: 
Indicators not previously reported in an official capacity, but well established through research projects

Developing: 
Indicators under development with some reporting in new state-of-the research projects, but not subject to multiple years of revision and replication

Future: 
Indicator gaps requiring research for possible future integration

Robustness

Very robust:
methodologically sound, reliable, and fit for bioeconomy monitoring

Robust:
fit, but with acceptable uncertainty and/or potential challenges

Sufficient:
possibly fit, but with foreseeable challenges

Weak:
currently unfit, but short-term potential

Insufficient:
currently unfit, but with long-term potential