The following symbols are used in the tables:
- = none or negligible
... = not available
1994/95 = a crop, marketing or fiscal
year running from one
calendar year to the next
1993-95 = average for three calendar
years
Figures in statistical tables may not add up because of rounding. Annual changes and rates of change have been calculated from unrounded figures. Unless otherwise indicated, the metric system is used.
The dollar sign ($) refers to US dollars. "Billion" is equal to 1 000 million.
FAO index numbers have 1979-81 as the base period. The production data refer to primary commodities (e.g. sugar cane and sugar beet instead of sugar) and national average producer prices are used as weights. The indices for food products exclude tobacco, coffee, tea, inedible oilseeds, animal and vegetable fibres and rubber. They are based on production data presented on a calendar-year basis.1
The indices of trade in agricultural products also are based on 1979-81. They include all the commodities and countries shown in the FAO Trade Yearbook. Indices of total food products include those edible products generally classified as "food".
All indices represent changes in current values of exports (f.o.b.) and imports (c.i.f.), all expressed in US dollars. When countries report imports valued at f.o.b. (free on board), these are adjusted to approximate c.i.f. (cost, insurance, freight) values. This method of estimation shows a discrepancy whenever the trend of insurance and freight diverges from that of the commodity unit values.
Volumes and unit value indices represent the changes in the price-weighted sum of quantities and of the quantity-weighted unit values of products traded between countries. The weights are, respectively, the price and quantity averages of 1979-81, which is the base reference period used for all the index number series currently computed by FAO. The Laspeyres formula is used in the construction of the index numbers.2
Developing countries include sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Near East and North Africa3 and Asia and the Pacific.4
Developed countries include the industrial countries and economies in transition.5
Country and city designations used in this publication are those current during the period in which the data were prepared.
1 For full details, see FAO Production Yearbook 1994.
2 For full details, see FAO Trade Yearbook 1994.
3 The Near East and North Africa includes: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
4 Asia and the Pacific also includes the former Asian centrally planned economies: Cambodia, China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Mongolia and Viet Nam.
5 The "industrial countries" include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. The "economies in transition" include: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia and the former USSR republics.
