Countries with higher fibre imports tend to export more goods.
Comparing Merchandise exports (current US$) with Total fibre furnish — Import value across 173 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.88
- Holding size constant
- +0.69
- Countries compared
- 173
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Fibre imports may reflect industrial capacity or raw material needs for export-oriented manufacturing. However, a likely confounder is economic development—wealthier countries may both import more fibre and export more goods.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. Correlation does not imply causation; other factors like trade policies or resource endowments could drive both variables.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.