Commodity Trade Statistics Database Research Articles

Comparative Advantage of Trade in Food Products among the Selected East African Community Partner States: Implication for Policy Formulation

Despite the potential benefits of regional trade, economic disparities among East African Community (EAC) member states persist. This study investigated the relationship between trade openness, comparative advantage in food trade, and economic performance within the EAC, focusing on Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. The study adopted export data from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, the World Bank, and the International Trade Centre, as well as GDP data from the Bank of Tanzania and the National Bureau of Statistics. Data were analysed through descriptive statistics, causality analysis, Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), and vector autoregressive model. Findings reveal a positive impact of trade openness on Tanzania’s economy but negative impacts on Kenya and Uganda, suggesting Tanzania benefits from EAC integration while Kenya and Uganda face trade challenges. The causality analysis shows that Tanzania’s economic performance drives food exports, trade openness impacts Kenya’s economic performance significantly, and Uganda sees a reciprocal link between economic growth and food exports; however, trade openness does not significantly affect Ugandan economic growth. The analysis of the Balassa index indicates Kenya’s food export advantage, a decline in Uganda’s export advantage since 1996, and Tanzania’s lack of export advantage with potential for improvement. The study recommends cautiously implementing trade openness policies within the EAC to prevent trade distortions and currency devaluation.

SINO-AFRICA AND TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFER: IMPLICATION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Technology is critical to industrialization and economic development of any nation and it is one of the serious bottlenecks in African industrialisation. There is no doubt that technology transfer is one of the less studied subjects in China-Africa relations. Foreign direct investment is an important factor for both technology transfer and economic growth in developing countries like Nigeria. Technological advancement has also become a major challenge to industrialization in Nigeria and to improve her economy, the Nigerian government had made various efforts at acquiring foreign technology to drive the development processes. The Nigerian government had signed pact with the Chinese government in critical areas such as agriculture, manufacturing, military, industry, education and other social sectors through Technological Transfer (TT) and Technical Cooperation (TC) that will aid knowledge sharing and transfer for the purpose of improving the economy. In view of this, the study examines the implication the Sino-Africa and technological transfer on sustainable development in Nigeria. The study employed the interpretivism philosophy and the qualitative approach was adopted in data collection and analysis. Secondary data were sourced from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics (UNCTS) Database, Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Statistics database, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) figures were from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Database, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations Statistics Database (UNdata). Other sources were the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Database, International Financial Statistics (IFS) of the World Bank; publications of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other agencies of government as well as newspapers and journals. Also, key informant interviews were conducted with Chinese expatriates in Lagos and Ogun State, Nigeria. Data collected were analysed using content analysis method. Findings of the study reveals that there is no clear-cut policy statement on Sino-Africa technological transfer and knowledge sharing; thus, the Nigerian government cannot sufficiently absorb new technology from Chinese multi-national corporations as most of these corporations always come as agents of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or contractors. The study concludes that adaptation and implementation of policy on technological transfer cannot promote sustainable development in Nigeria. The study recommends among others that knowledge and technology transfer should form the basis of a regulatory framework of the national FDI policy. Also, there is need for the establishment of training institutes in each State of the federation so as to facilitate technological transfer. In addition, there should be collaboration between the established training institutes and higher institutions of learning so that students can have practical knowledge on advanced equipment, methodologies and technologies that will engender sustainable development in Nigeria within a decade.

Analysis on Foreign Trade Competitiveness of Tobacco and Tobacco Substitutes in China

With the development of economy and technology in China, consumers' demand for tobacco products is rising, and the import and export trade volume of tobacco and tobacco substitutes is gradually increasing. The trade of tobacco products occupies an important position in agricultural trade. This paper collects the import and export data of tobacco and tobacco substitutes at home and abroad by searching the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, the National Bureau of Statistics database and statistical yearbook, and analyzes the trade competitiveness of tobacco and tobacco substitutes in Chapter 24 of HS classification index from 1995 to 2020 by using Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA), Revealed Competitive Comparative Advantage Index (CA), Revealed Competitive Index (RC) and Trade Competitive Index (TC), and puts forward some countermeasures and suggestions to improve the international trade competitiveness of tobacco products in China.

Global Trade Pattern of Medical Devices and China's Trade Position: Based on Data From 2001 to 2020.

To depict the evolution of the global trade of medical devices, this study analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of global and China's trade patterns of medical devices from 2001 to 2020 based on data from the World Bank and United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, and thereby investigates the status quo of global and China's medical device trade, as well as changes in China's position in the global medical device trade. The findings are as follows. First, the total global trade volume of medical devices is generally on the rise, showing closer network connections. Despite some changes in trade position, the core countries in the global medical device trade network are relatively fixed. The intermediate position of core trading countries has been weakened on the whole, whereas exporting countries have generally assumed an enhanced central position. Communities with geographical proximity have been formed in the global medical device trade network, including two large communities, the Asian-European countries and the Pacific Rim countries, and one small community, the South American countries. Second, with its rapidly growing trade volume of medical devices with other countries, China has now become the fourth largest medical device trading country in the world. Its number of import and export partners has remained relatively stable and continued to increase. Its export markets are relatively concentrated, and a tripartite pattern of import sources has been formed. China has established extensive interdependent relations and almost no one-way dependent relations in the medical device trade. Among its major trading partners for medical devices, the interdependence of China with developed countries/regions, such as European and American countries and Japan, has generally deepened.

Advancing UN Comtrade for Physical Trade Flow Analysis: Review of Data Quality Issues and Solutions

International trade has been considered a critical driving force of material flows and their environmental pressures, which has been a global research hotspot. The United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) is the original and probably the most widely-used data source to support the physical trade analysis. However, data discrepancies have been discovered in UN Comtrade, which may lead to diametrically conflicted conclusions if not properly addressed. To promote applications of UN Comtrade, this article reviews data statistics criteria and preprocessing procedures, discusses three main data quality issues (outliers, missing values, and bilateral asymmetries), and reviews methods to explore adequate options. It is revealed that data quality issues existed in data of almost all the commodities, reporters, and periods, but existing methods are subject to certain limitations. Furthermore, this article presents a brief introduction of our following work on addressing these issues.

Advancing UN Comtrade for physical trade flow analysis: Addressing the issue of missing values

Trade contributes to the redistribution of resources among countries and regions. One of the most widely used data sources is the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade). Nevertheless, data issues still limit its validity, trustworthiness, and use. A critical issue is the lack of commodity weight information. It relies heavily on data quality to determine the global market's suppliers and consumers. Thus, trade needs reliable methods for filling in the missing physical values. Using statistical approaches, we estimate missing physical values for commodities, countries/areas, and years. The impact of handled data on countries and commodities varies considerably; for example, South Africa's net weight rose by 117% and clocks’ and watches’ by 63% (HS0, 1988–2019), compared with their original data. The directions of net trade flows for 10594 records have been reversed. Finally, the bilateral asymmetry problem improved. Overall, this paper introduces a novel approach for improving data accuracy.

Global Trade Pattern of Traditional Chinese Medicines and China's Trade Position.

To depict the evolution of the global trade of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) products, this article analyzes the 2001–2020 trade data of TCM products in the World Bank and United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database to discern the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of global and China's trade patterns of TCM products from 2001 to 2020 and thereby assess the changes in the global trade of TCM products and in the positions of various countries or regions in the global trade of TCM products. Research findings are as follows: First, on the whole, the total trade volume of TCM products and the number of participating economies and trade connections are on the rise. Second, in terms of topological structure, with higher network density and rising transmission efficiency, the global trade network of TCM products has typical small-world and scale-free network characteristics and has begun to be controlled by a few countries. Judging from the co-opetition between major trading countries, there are more diversified sources of imports for major trading countries, and there is competition between supplying countries. Third, For China, the trade volume of TCM products between China and various countries worldwide has grown rapidly and exhibits a trend of continuous increase followed by decline. China has established extensive trade partnerships and its position in the global trade network of TCM products has been continuously improved. China's participation has contributed to a closer connection among trading entities, but its network heterogeneity remains to be further improved. From the perspective of trade interdependence, the number of countries or regions maintaining high interdependence with China has been gradually increasing, and most of them are European and American countries, Japan, and Southeast Asian countries. The number of countries or regions maintaining low interdependence with China has gradually decreased, and countries or regions that are completely one-way dependent on China are nonexistent.

INDICADORES DE DESEMPENHO EXPORTADOR DO COMPLEXO SOJA BRASILEIRO – 2000-2019

the objective is to analyze the export performance of the national soy complex in the face of its competition in the foreign market, covering the period from 2000 to 2019. The data were collected on the Comex Stat portal, of the Secretariat of Foreign Trade (SECEX) of the Ministry of Development Industry and Commerce (MDIC), Free on Board (FOB) data in dollars; the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade). To this end, the construction of international trade indicators was used. The results show that Brazil has a Symmetric and Vollrath Revealed Comparative Advantage and Revealed Competitiveness for all items inherent to the soy complex in the entire period studied. With regard to the Exporting Effort, it was found that the soy complex's exports are concentrated in the commercialization of the soybean. Regarding the Regional Orientation, it was found that soybean grain exports are oriented to China and Spain, soybean oil to India and soybean meal to France and Holland.

Imported Intermediate Goods and Economic Growth

Purpose - This research aims to provide empirical evidence that highlights the importance of imported intermediate goods in long-term economic growth. To this end, this paper develops an index that measures the productivity gains associated with a country’s intermediate goods imports using highly disaggregated trade data. Design/methodology - The basic hypothesis is that countries sourcing higher-productivity (or higher-quality) inputs from developed economies derive a larger benefit from foreign R&D. To explore this hypothesis, standard cross-country growth regressions are performed using the highly disaggregated data from the United Nations (UN) Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE). To address the endogeneity issue, I apply an instrumental variable (IV) approach. Findings - The results of this study demonstrate that the index predicts subsequent economic growth in middle- and low-income countries. This finding is consistent with previous studies that have argued that developing countries can achieve substantial productivity gains by importing intermediate inputs from developed countries. By contrast, there is no evidence of a significant association between the index and economic growth in high-income countries. Originality/value - This paper contributes to our understanding of the causal relationship between international trade and economic growth. From an economic policy perspective, the results suggest that developing countries with limited technology endowment can boost growth from input-tariff liberalization.

REVEALED COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE OF WATERMELON TRADE IN ASEAN 5 COUNTRIES

Watermelon Citrullus Lanatus (Thunb) is an important commercial fruit crop in ASEAN. One way to improve economic growth is through trade and comparative advantage. There are very some researches regarding with comparative advantage of watermelon trade in ASEAN. The purpose of this article is to determine the comparative advantage of watermelon trade in five ASEAN member countries. This article uses secondary data only. Watermelon trade data covering the six years period 2014-2019 were obtained from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database. This article applies the original index of the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) to find out the level of comparative advantage of watermelon commodity. Results show that Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Viet Nam have a comparative advantage of watermelon trade in the global market. This study suggests that ASEAN 5 member nations should try to maintain its comparative advantage of watermelon exports in the international market.

The Effect of International Technology Cooperation on Bilateral Trade Flows: A Case of The Korea-Africa Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiative (KAFACI)

This paper used the gravity model of international trade to analyze the effects of international technology cooperation on bilateral trade flows between member and non-member countries of the Korea-Africa Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiative (KAFACI). We used panel data of bilateral trade between 45 African countries from the United Nations commodity trade statistics database for the period between 2000 and 2018. To control for endogeneity, selection bias, and correlation within the panels, this study used the Heckman random-effect regression with sample selection technique. Although insignificant, the empirical results indicated a positive effect of international technology cooperation on bilateral trade flows between KAFACI member and non-member countries. Notwithstanding our findings, KAFACI might have significantly increased the bilateral trade flows between its members and main trading partners outside Africa, which were not explored in this paper. Besides, the level and rate of technology adoption by KAFACI member countries were also crucial for influencing the supply side of the economy to unlock trade, but they were not assessed in this study.

RELAÇÕES ECONÔMICAS ENTRE AMÉRICA LATINA E CARIBE E CHINA E SEUS IMPACTOS NA INTEGRAÇÃO REGIONAL (2001-2016)

The article provides an analysis of the Chinese presence and influence in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and how it affects regional integration processes that exist in the region. We start from a brief qualitative analysis, stressing the role of foreign influence on regional integration, highlighting how the Chinese expansion plan affects the case of Latin American integration. Then, a critical quantitative analysis of the transactions between LAC-China is carried out, analyzing imports/exports, preferential trade agreements (PTA), and foreign direct investment (FDI). The data comprises the 2001-2016 period and were retrieved from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade), World Integrated Trade Solutions (WITS), China-Latin America Finance Database, and China Global Investment Tracker. In conclusion, we highlight the growing Chinese influence in the Latin America region, emphasizing that the bilateral narrowing of Latin American countries with China has an indirect and adverse impact on regional integration.

The dual margin of Chinese agricultural products export to Japan

The purpose of the article is to investigate the reasons for the decline in trade activity between China and Japan, considering the fact that China is the largest source of Japanese agricultural products imports. Agricultural products trade plays an important role in the economic and trade relations between China and Japan, and the proportion of China's agricultural products exports to Japan's exports is increasing year by year. However, after 2013, China's agricultural exports to Japan have shown a downward trend year by year. What are the reasons for this change in trade? What is the structure of China's agricultural exports to Japan? This is a problem that must be understood. This article uses the HS4 quantile code data of China's agricultural exports to Japan from 2010 to 2019 by the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade), and applies the binary marginal decomposition method to analyze China's agricultural exports to Japan. The results show that China's agricultural exports to Japan In export growth, the marginal contribution of expansion is weak, while the marginal contribution of intensive is larger. After further decomposing the intensive margin into the quantity margin and the price margin, it is found that the growth of China's agricultural exports to Japan is mainly due to the rapid growth of the quantity margin, while the price margin does not contribute much to export growth. In the future, if China wants to expand its exports of agricultural products to Japan, it must become familiar with and adapt to the access standards of the Japanese market as soon as possible, increase the added value of agricultural products, and enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of agricultural exports to Japan. JEL Classification: F1 F12, F14.

Kenya-China Trade in Manufactured Goods: A Competitive or Complementary Relationship?

Trade between Kenya and China has increased in recent years, with a significant increase in imports from China. This study’s objectives were to examine the nature of trade between Kenya and China in manufactured goods, analyze the Revealed Comparative Advantage (R.C.A.) and make recommendations for improving trade. This study was based on the Comparative Advantage Theory and used data from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (U.N. Comtrade) from 1984 to 2015, as this period had complete data. The results suggest that the nature of trade in manufactured goods between Kenya and China is characterized by high imports from China and very low exports from Kenya-a large proportion of Kenya’s manufactured exports end up in countries with which it has a clear trade framework. Moreover, Kenya lacks a comparative advantage for manufactured goods, while China has a high comparative advantage; therefore, Chinese exports complement Kenya’s import needs. The research identified the lack of a comprehensive trade policy and strict rules of origin as serious challenges to trade between Kenya and China. In addition, Kenya’s trade orientation in the manufacturing sector has been reduced by inadequate investment, limited value addition, and high labor costs. Resolving these obstacles is vital to overcoming trade imbalance and boosting Kenya’s competitiveness, as the potential for future growth in trade in manufactured goods from Kenya to China is weak, based on existing economic specialization. Kenya should focus on a comprehensive trade policy with China, support more FDI in manufacturing, innovation, and technology, improve labor productivity and infrastructure, enhance its global value chains, and create new comparative advantages among others. This will improve the competitiveness of its products and increase trade orientation on the Chinese market and globally. The study concludes that Kenya-China trade in manufactured goods is complementary. This conclusion can only be applied in genera since the study used aggregate data. The findings confirm the Comparative Advantage theory that countries export what they have in abundance and import goods that they cannot produce effectively.

Exploring the structure and influence factors of trade competitive advantage network along the Belt and Road

The comparative advantage among countries determines their trade relations pattern and even regional governance mode, which has profound significance for understanding the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative. B&R has been gaining attention internationally since its proposal. This paper aims to investigate the structure and influence factors of trade competitive advantage networks of the countries along the B&R (BR-TCANs). Different from the existing literature, this paper constructs the directed trade comparative advantage index (DTCA), and establishes BR-TCANs by using the bilateral trade data in 1993–2018 collected from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UNCOMTRADE). Subsequently, based on complex network approach, we analyze the structure and its evolution characteristics of BR-TCANs, and then discuss the factors that influence the formation of BR-TCANs’ structure by using exponential random graph models (ERGMs). The results show that there are obvious small-world and reciprocity characteristics on BR-TCANs. Both Turkey and Russia have the largest scope of trade competitive advantages, and China has the strongest intermediation ability in BR-TCANs. BR-TCANs form three communities, including the West, the North and the South. The formation of BR-TCANs is greatly influenced by popularity, clustering, reciprocity and self-reinforcing mechanism, and is manifested in the heterogeneity of GDP and FDI and in the homogeneity of population and trade openness. Countries with higher GDP, spoken language and currency advantages are more likely to establish trade competitive advantages with others. Accordingly, the BR-TCANs are embedded in the networks of common language, currency, geographic boundary and free trade agreements.

Influence of petroleum and gas trade on EU economies from the reduced Google matrix analysis of UN COMTRADE data

Using the United Nations COMTRADE database (United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, http://comtrade.un.org/db/ (accessed January 2019)) we apply the reduced Google matrix (REGOMAX) algorithm to analyze the multiproduct world trade in years 2004–2016. Our approach allows determining the trade balance sensitivity of a group of countries to a specific product price increase from a specific exporting country taking into account all direct and indirect trade pathways via all world countries exchanging 61 UN COMTRADE identified trade products. On the basis of this approach we present the influence of trade in petroleum and gas products from Russia, USA, Saudi Arabia and Norway determining the sensitivity of each EU country. We show that the REGOMAX approach provides a new and more detailed analysis of trade influence propagation comparing to the usual approach based on export and import flows.

Imported Intermediate Goods and Economic Growth Nexus: A Cross-National Analysis

Purpose - This research aims to analyze the effect of productivity gains from imported intermediate goods on economic growth in a cross-national analysis. Design/methodology/approach - An index measuring productivity gains at the country level is constructed using disaggregated trade data from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE). In particular, this paper focuses on the results for the sub-samples of developed and developing countries (more precisely, OECD member countries and non-member countries). We could a priori expect that gains from imported inputs would be larger in developing countries because developing countries are expected to experience higher productivity growth due to the introduction of new and better intermediate goods. Findings - The main result shows that the proposed index is a useful predictor of Long-run economic growth in developing countries. Research implications or Originality - This study implies that developing countries can attain higher economic growth simply by increasing the use of high-quality imported intermediate inputs. On the contrary, higher utilization of foreign inputs cannot guarantee economic growth in developed countries. One possible explanation is that firms in developed countries are likely to belong to a technology-leader group. Self-innovation may play a more important role to enhance the competitiveness of these firms.

Dynamics of Trade Specialization and Trade Performance of ASEAN–India Free Trade Agreement

In the present era of globalization, trade is always considered as an indispensable catalyst for the growth and development of any nation. The present study examines the trade performance and degree of trade specialization of India and ASEAN members for the pre- and post-AIFTA period at Harmonized Standard (HS) 6-digit level of product classification. The study evaluates the data sources viz. United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN COMTRADE), United Nation Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) and trade map to evaluate the trade specialization of India and ASEAN members by using Lafay Index (LFi) approach. The present study found that though India experiences a shift from low specialized economy towards a more competitive and specialized one, still, it faces a competitive disadvantage from ASEAN members for distinctive industry levels. The study suggests that India should confront issues such as technological dissemination, diversification of merchandise manufactured, quality sophistication and reliability at different industry levels which constrain higher degree of trade specialization.

From transit hub to major supplier of illicit cigarettes to Argentina and Brazil: the changing role of domestic production and transnational tobacco companies in Paraguay between 1960 and 2003

BackgroundParaguay has reportedly been a major transit hub for illicit tobacco products since the 1960s, initially to supply markets in Argentina and Brazil and, more recently, other regional markets and beyond. However, to date there has been no systematic analysis, notably independent of the tobacco industry, of this trade including the roles of domestic production and transnational tobacco companies (TTCs). This article fills that gap by detailing the history of Paraguay’s illicit cigarette trade to Brazil and Argentina of TTC products and Paraguayan production between 1960 and 2003. The effective control of illicit cigarette flows, under Article 15 of the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and the Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, requires fuller understanding of the changing nature of the illicit trade.MethodsWe systematically searched internal industry documents to understand the activities and strategies of leading TTCs in Paraguay and subregion over time. We also mapped illicit trade volume and patterns using US government and UN data on the cigarette trade involving Paraguay. We then estimated Paraguay’s cigarette production from 1989 to 2003 using tobacco leaf flows from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade).ResultsWe identify four phases in the illicit tobacco trade involving Paraguay: 1) Paraguay as a transit hub to smuggle BAT and PMI cigarettes from the U.S. into Argentina and Brazil (from the 1960s to the mid-1970s); 2) BAT and PMI competing in north-east Argentina (1989–1994); 3) BAT and PMI competing in southern and southern-east Brazil (mid to late 1990s); and 4) the growth in the illicit trade of Paraguayan manufactured cigarettes (from the mid- 1990s onwards). These phases suggest the illicit trade was seeded by TTCs, and that the system of supply and demand on lower priced brands they developed in the 1990s created a business opportunity for manufacturing in Paraguay. Brazil’s efforts to fight this trade, with a 150% tax on exports to Latin American countries in 1999, further prompted supply of the illicit trade to shift from TTCs to Paraguayan manufacturers.ConclusionThis paper extends evidence of the longstanding complicity of TTCs in the illicit trade to this region and the consequent growth of Paraguayan production in the 1990s. Our findings confirm the need to better understand the factors influencing how the illicit tobacco trade has changed over time, in specific regional contexts, and amid tobacco industry globalization. In Paraguay, the changing roles of TTC and domestic production have been central to shifting patterns of illicit supply and distribution since the 1960s. Important questions are raised, in turn, about TTCs efforts to participate as legitimate partners in global efforts to combat the problem, including a leading role in data gathering and analysis.

\u201cWe think globally\u201d: the rise of Paraguay\u2019s Tabacalera del Este as a threat to global tobacco control

BackgroundLeading transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) began to expand their operations in Latin America in the 1960s. This included legally exporting their cigarettes to Paraguay during the 1960s which, in turn, were illegally re-exported to Argentina and Brazil. By the 1990s, competition between BAT and PMI for this lucrative illicit market, focusing on low-priced brands, prompted manufacturing in Paraguay. Paraguayan manufacturing rapidly grew after the introduction of a new cigarette export tax in Brazil in 1999.MethodsWe systematically searched Truth Tobacco Industry Documents (TTID) to understand the activities and strategies of leading TTCs in Paraguay and subregion over time. We applied the analytical framework of Lee and Eckhardt (2017) to understand Tabesa’s global business strategy. We searched the websites of TTCs and Tabesa for activities since the mid 2000s to understand how the companies publicly describe these strategies. We used the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) as an independent source to crosscheck statements by Tabesa executives about export markets. We contextualized and triangulated our findings with 42 key informant interviews.ResultsTabesa became the largest cigarette manufacturer in Paraguay, and one of the largest companies in the country, through complicity in the illicit trade. Enabled by market conditions created by leading TTCs, and a permissive regulatory environment in Paraguay, evidence suggests Tabesa had become a major source of illicit cigarettes across Latin America and beyond by the late 2000s. Although Brazil continues to account for the bulk of Tabesa’s revenues, findings suggest that the company is aspiring to compete with TTCs in markets worldwide through legal and illegal sales.ConclusionThere is a need for fuller understanding of the risks to global tobacco control from local companies aspiring to compete with TTCs. The rise of Tabesa is part of the changing nature of the illicit trade in tobacco products which must be taken into account in implementing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and its Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products. Potential conflicts of interest concerning Tabesa illustrate the importance of FCTC Article 5.3 on industry interference. There is also an urgent need to address the lack of independent and rigorous data on the illicit tobacco trade in the region.