New York SBDC Research Network

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) launched an internet-based data service for the global user community. It brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point. Users can now search and download a variety of statistical resources of the UN system. Users are often unaware of the full array of statistical information that the UN system has in its data libraries. UNdata addresses pools major UN databases and those of several international into one single internet environment. The innovative design allows a user to access a large number of UN databases either by browsing the data series or through a keyword search. Useful features like Country Profiles, Advanced Search and Glossaries are also provided to aid research. The numerous databases, tables and glossaries containing over 60 million data points cover a wide range of themes including Agriculture, Crime, Education, Employment,

FROM the World Bank : Poland was the global top improver in the past year. It enhanced the ease of doing business through four institutional or regulatory reforms, making it easier to register property, pay taxes, enforce contracts, and resolve insolvency. Besides Poland, nine other economies are recognized as having the most improved ease of doing business across several areas of regulation as measured by the report: Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Burundi, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Greece, Serbia, and Kazakhstan. Worldwide, 108 economies implemented 201 regulatory reforms in 2011/12 making it easier to do business as measured by Doing Business. Reform efforts globally have focused on making it easier to start a new business, increasing the efficiency of tax administration and facilitating trade across international borders. Of the 201 regulatory reforms recorded in the past year, 44% focused on these 3 policy areas alone. Singapore topped the global ranking on th

UN COMTRADE is the pseudonym for United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database. Over 170 reporter countries provide the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) with their annual international trade statistics data detailed by commodities and partner countries. These data are subsequently transformed into the United Nations Statistics Division standard format with consistent coding and valuation using the UN/OECD CoprA internal processing system. The UN COMTRADE is the largest depository of international trade data. It contains well over 1.7 billion data records for 45 years and is available on the internet! All commodity values are converted from national currency into US dollars using exchange rates supplied by the reporter countries, or derived from monthly market rates and volume of trade. Quantities, when provided with the reporter country data and when possible, are converted into metric units. Commodities are reported in the current classification and revision (HS2002 in