Chemicals and pharmaceuticals trade globe
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Flows on the globe for the selected product, given the layers, by value
Key points
World exports of chemical and pharmaceutical products in 2024 totaled about $2.5 tn: pharmaceuticals — $863 bn, plastics — $727 bn, organic chemicals — $479 bn, inorganic and other chemicals — $454 bn. Pharmaceuticals are exported mainly by Germany (14%), the United States, Switzerland and Ireland (10–11% each); the largest flow is from Ireland to the United States ($34 bn). China leads in plastics and organic chemicals (19% of world exports each).
Seaborne shipments total about $680 bn a year. The key maritime chokepoints are the English Channel (~$166 bn), the Strait of Malacca (~$157 bn), the Suez Canal (~$146 bn) and Bab-el-Mandeb (~$135 bn). Pharmaceuticals depend little on straits: about three quarters of their value is carried by air. The most vulnerable part of the market is Persian Gulf petrochemicals: 63% of Iran’s plastics exports and about a third of those of Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Importance of straits and air hubs
Click “Close strait” or “Close hub” in the lists below, or select an object on the globe. The model shows how much trade passes through it and which countries depend on it most: importers are highlighted in red, exporters in orange. The more saturated the color, the larger the share of the country’s trade affected.
Straits and canals
Estimated value of seaborne shipments through each strait in the selected layer. The “Close strait” button shows whose trade depends on it.
Air hubs
Estimated value of air shipments of the selected commodity through each cargo hub. The “Close hub” button shows whose trade depends on it.
Click a flow, country, strait or hub on the globe
About the data
Data. Source: BACI (CEPII), a reconciled database of bilateral trade based on UN Comtrade, 2024 (accessed via OEC). Layers: “Pharmaceuticals” — HS chapter 30 (medicines, vaccines, blood products, medical supplies); “Organic chemicals” — chapter 29 (hydrocarbons and their derivatives, alcohols, acids, active pharmaceutical ingredients, etc.); “Plastics” — chapter 39 (polymers in primary forms and articles thereof); “Other chemicals” — chapters 28 (inorganic chemicals) and 38 (miscellaneous chemical products). Fertilizers are shown in a separate globe.
What is shown. The globe shows the 70 largest sea flows, the 40 largest air flows (dashed lines with planes) and the 25 largest overland flows. Strait estimates cover all flows from $80–150 m — 87–91% of world trade in each layer. When a strait is closed, country lists include countries with trade in the layer of at least 0.1% of the world total (and at least $50 m).
Mode of transport. Trade between neighboring countries (within Europe and North America, China with its neighbors including Central Asia, within Southeast Asia, etc.) is treated as overland. For other flows, the sea share is taken from Eurostat statistics on EU trade with distant countries for 2024: about 27% of the value of pharmaceuticals, 44% of organic chemicals, 83% of plastics and 67% of other chemicals are carried by sea, the rest by air. Air shipments do not depend on straits.
Routes and importance of straits. A route is the shortest path between the countries’ main ports over the network of sea lanes. A strait’s importance for a country is the share of its shipments through the strait in its total imports or exports of the product group. When a strait is closed, the model looks for a detour and estimates how much longer it is (at an average vessel speed of 14 knots); if there is no detour, the shipment is considered cut off.
Air hubs. The globe shows the 17 largest international cargo airports from the ACI World ranking for 2024 (excluding the sorting hubs of express carriers in Memphis, Louisville and Cincinnati). An air flow runs from the main cargo airport of the exporting country to the airport of the importing country: for China this is Shanghai; for the United States, Los Angeles (Asia and Oceania), Miami (Latin America) or Chicago (other destinations). Flights longer than 9500 km transit via Anchorage, Dubai, Doha or Istanbul if this lengthens the route by no more than 15%. When a hub is closed, the shipment is rerouted via other airports in the country or neighboring hubs; for Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Qatar there is no comparable alternative. The distribution across hubs is a model estimate: there are no open data on the routes of individual air shipments.
Limitations. This is a computational model, not vessel-tracking data. A significant share of pharmaceutical trade consists of intra-company shipments: large flows from Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium and Slovenia reflect where multinational companies locate production and how they structure their taxes. Re-exports via the Netherlands and Belgium are shown as separate flows.
WhiteIndex. Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Trade Globe (October 2026). Data: BACI (CEPII) based on UN Comtrade, 2024; Eurostat.
All sources
BACI (CEPII) based on UN Comtrade, 2024
This text was translated automatically from Russian. Figures, years, names and sources are as in the original.
Exports of chemical and pharmaceutical products in 2024: sea and air routes, the role of straits in world trade