The Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) database presents annual, quarterly, and monthly figures on the value of merchandise exports and imports by trade partners as well as area and world aggregates showing trade flows between major areas of the world. The DOTS database provides users with more than approximately 100,000 time series of annual, quarterly, and monthly trade data for approximately 250 countries.

Country composition
The country composition of area aggregates distinguishes three main categories: industrial countries, developing countries, and a group of countries summarized as other countries n.i.e. (not included elsewhere). Developing countries are divided into five areas: Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere. Other countries n.i.e. comprise Cuba, North Korea, and prior to 1990, Eastern Germany.

Data
Data that countries report to the Fund on exports and imports by trading partners vary in frequency and currentness. The 23 industrial countries and about 40 developing countries report their data by month on a regular basis. In recent years, these countries have represented more than 85 percent of the value of recorded world exports and imports. Other countries report monthly data that are less current, or they compile and provide only quarterly or annual data. In general the data for individual countries are reported by official national agencies to the Fund or through their official publications. For some countries, the data reported to the United Nations Statistical Division and maintained in the Comtrade database also have been used. For most member countries of the European Union, monthly data are sourced from the Comext database maintained by Eurostat.

Also included are memorandum items for the European Union (EU), Oil Exporting Countries, and Non-Oil Developing Countries. Data in these memorandum lines show trade by all members of the group with the respective country. Similarly these memorandum lines appear on the area and world tables. The memorandum line represents trade by all individual members of the group. For example, the EU line in the world table represents trade by all EU members with the world, including trade among members. It does not present the EU data as if the EU was a single country. Users interested in such statistics would need to subtract intra-EU trade.

All figures are presented in U.S. dollars. Most countries report data in their national currency. U.S. dollar equivalents are obtained by converting the data at exchange rates published in series rf or rh in the country pages in IFS. The area and world totals are obtained by summing the individual country data. Export data for individual countries are generally shown f.o.b., whereas import data usually are shown c.i.f.

These data are also published in the Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook (DOTSY).