Sierra Leone: Food exports (% of merchandise exports)

Key figures

Since 1963 it is up 30.32 percentage points from 15.32% in 1963. The World Bank has no value for 40 of the years in between; the chart leaves those gaps open rather than joining across them.

What the numbers say

In 2018, Sierra Leone's food exports (% of merchandise exports) fell 27.71 percentage points on 2017 (from 73.35% to 45.64%).

Across the 9 yearly changes before that (1964 to 2017), the average change was +8.01 percentage points and a typical year strayed about 28.7 percentage points from that (the standard deviation). This year's change was 1.2 standard deviations below that average, so it was larger than a typical year, though not out of the range seen before.

On record, the biggest yearly rise was 83.77 percentage points in 2015 and the biggest yearly fall was 27.71 percentage points in 2018. The numbers show how large and when, not why; for the cause, look at what happened in that country in those years.

Worked out from the yearly values above. How the checks work: standard deviation, z-scores and straight-line trends.

How it compares

See how every economy compares in the full ranking.

Closest to Sierra Leone in the 2018 ranking

• Greenland — 1st of 6: 92.34%
• Guinea-Bissau — 2nd of 6: 68.55%
• Sudan — 3rd of 6: 50.55%
• Solomon Islands — 5th of 6: 20.15%
• Bangladesh — 6th of 6: 3.39%

What this measures

Food comprises the commodities in SITC (Rev. 3) sections 0 (food and live animals), 1 (beverages and tobacco), and 4 (animal and vegetable oils and fats) and division 22 (oil seeds, oil nuts, and oil kernels). This indicator is expressed as a percentage of merchandise exports which is comprised of goods whose economic ownership is changed between a resident and a non-resident and that are not included in the following specific categories: goods under merchanting, non-monetary gold, and parts of travel, construction, and government goods and services n.i.e.

Limitations: Previous editions contained data based on the SITC revision 1. Data for earlier years in previous editions may differ because of the change in methodology. Concordance tables are available to convert data reported in one system to another.

Regional and income-group figures are computed by the World Bank as a weighted average.

All 16 values

Food exports (% of merchandise exports) in nearby economies

• Angola — 0.54% (2025)
• Benin — 39.66% (2024)
• Botswana — 1.85% (2023)
• Burkina Faso — 7.09% (2024)
• Burundi — 46.02% (2023)
• Cabo Verde — 86.39% (2024)
• Cameroon — 22.85% (2023)
• Central African Republic — 0.22% (2024)
• Comoros — 88.54% (2023)
• Congo, Dem. Rep. — 1.34% (2024)

More private sector & trade data for Sierra Leone

• Merchandise trade (% of GDP) — 45.91% (2025)
• Merchandise imports (current US$) — US$1.89 billion (2025)
• Merchandise exports (current US$) — US$1.53 billion (2025)
• Merchandise exports to high-income economies (% of total merchandise exports) — 13.74% (2023)
• Merchandise exports by the reporting economy, residual (% of total merchandise exports) — 0.00395% (2023)
• Merchandise exports by the reporting economy (current US$) — US$513.99 million (2023)
• Merchandise imports from economies in the Arab World (% of total merchandise imports) — 10.91% (2023)
• Merchandise imports from high-income economies (% of total merchandise imports)

Reading data like this

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Questions people ask

What is Sierra Leone's food exports (% of merchandise exports)?

45.64% in 2018, according to the World Bank (World Development Indicators).

How has it changed since 1963?

It is up 30.32 percentage points from 15.32% in 1963. The highest value was 91.64% in 2002 and the lowest 4.04% in 2014.

Is the latest change in food exports (% of merchandise exports) unusual for Sierra Leone?

In 2018, Sierra Leone's food exports (% of merchandise exports) fell 27.71 percentage points on 2017 (from 73.35% to 45.64%). Across the 9 yearly changes before that (1964 to 2017), the average change was +8.01 percentage points and a typical year strayed about 28.7 percentage points from that (the standard deviation). This year's change was 1.2 standard deviations below that average, so it was larger than a typical year, though not out of the range seen before.

Where does this data come from?

The World Bank's World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: Comtrade database, United Nations (UN), publisher: UN Statistics Division; World Integrated Trade Solution system (WITS); Staff estimates, World Bank (WB).

Source

World Bank, World Development Indicators, indicator TX.VAL.FOOD.ZS.UN, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: Comtrade database, United Nations (UN), publisher: UN Statistics Division; World Integrated Trade Solution system (WITS); Staff estimates, World Bank (WB) Figures are fetched from the World Bank API and refreshed monthly; see the series on data.worldbank.org. The full definition and method are in the World Bank's metadata glossary. Comparisons use the same World Bank release.

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