Which Countries Import Your Product? How to Use ITC Trade Map and Export Potential Map

Before a factory spends a dollar on a market, one question should be answered. Does that country actually buy what we make, and from whom?

The answer is public and free. The International Trade Centre publishes import and export figures for every product and every country, and a second tool that estimates where your country's exports of that product have unrealised potential.

This guide walks through both tools step by step. Then it explains what they cannot show you, and where to look for the rest.

Prefer to see the numbers first? Get a free demand report for your products.

What the ITC Tools Are

The ITC Trade Map holds annual and monthly trade statistics reported by customs authorities worldwide, organised by the Harmonised System code of the product. For any product you can see which countries import it, from where, how much, and how that has changed.

The Export Potential Map takes those figures and models where exports from your country of a given product could grow, based on supply, demand, tariffs and how easy each market is to reach.

Both are run by the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. Registration is free, and free accounts see the full data for most purposes a factory needs.

Step 1: Find Your HS Code

Everything in Trade Map is organised by HS code, so start there. Your customs broker or freight forwarder will know the six-digit code for your product; it is also on any export declaration you have filed.

Six digits are the same worldwide, set by the World Customs Organization. Anything beyond six digits is national and varies by country, so use the six-digit code for comparisons across markets.

If your product straddles two codes, run both. If it is a component inside a larger product, also check the code of the finished product; its importers are your buyers' customers.

Step 2: See Which Countries Import Your Product

In Trade Map, choose "Imports", enter the HS code, and set the country to "World". The table lists every importing country with the value imported, its share of world imports, growth over the last five years, and the average tariff it applies.

Sort by imported value to see the big markets. Then sort by growth to see the rising ones. A large market that is shrinking is often harder to enter than a mid-size market that is growing, because incumbents in the first are fighting for a smaller pie.

Note the "concentration" and "distance" columns. Concentration shows whether a few suppliers dominate that market; distance shows how far its typical suppliers are. A market that already imports from far away is used to buyers like you.

Step 3: See Who Supplies Each Market Today

Click any importing country to see its supplying countries for your product, ranked by value and with five-year growth. This tells you who you are competing with and whether your country is already present.

If your country already supplies that market, buyers there know suppliers like you exist, and the paperwork paths are worn in. If it does not, you will be explaining more, but you may also have no direct competition.

Watch the unit values where they are available. Value divided by quantity gives an average import price, which is a rough guide to whether the market buys at your price level or well above or below it.

Step 4: Check Your Country's Export Potential

Open the Export Potential Map, choose your country and the product, and it lists target markets ranked by estimated untapped potential. The figure is the gap between what the model says your country could export there and what it exports today.

Treat it as a shortlist, not a decision. The model uses national aggregates; it cannot know your capacity, your certifications or your prices. But a market that shows high untapped potential and healthy growth in Trade Map is a strong candidate for the first box of your export marketing plan.

Step 5: Check Tariffs and Requirements

Trade Map shows the average tariff each market applies to your product from your country. For the detailed rate, and for the certifications, labelling and standards the market requires, use the ITC's Market Access Map, which lists tariffs and non-tariff measures by product and origin.

A market with strong demand and a requirement you cannot meet this year is a market for next year. Write it down and move on.

What the Tools Cannot Tell You

The trade data ends where your marketing begins. It answers "which countries buy this product" and stops there. Four questions remain.

Who is looking right now? Customs data is a year old and shows what shipped. It does not show which buyers are searching for a new supplier this month, or in which country the searches are rising.

What do they type? Import statistics are organised by HS code. Buyers do not search by HS code; they search in their own language, using the words their industry uses. Those words are what your product pages have to carry.

Whom do they find? When a buyer in your target market searches for your product, some supplier appears. The data does not tell you who, or how far down the results your factory is, if it appears at all.

What do the AI assistants say? Buyers increasingly ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity to suggest suppliers. Trade data has nothing to say about whose name comes back.

Filling the Gap With Search Data

Search demand answers the first three questions and a little of the fourth. Google publishes how often each phrase is searched, by country and month. For a product, that means you can see how many buyers in Germany searched for your product category last month, which phrases they used, and whether the number is rising.

Put the two together and the picture is complete. Trade Map says Germany imports a great deal of your product; search data says buyers there search for it under three specific phrases, and the suppliers who appear are two competitors and a marketplace. Now you know the market, the words and the gap.

Our free report does exactly this combination for a factory's own products: search demand by country, who buyers find today, and what the AI assistants answer. It is the report we would want before spending on any market.

A Twenty-Minute Routine

Find the six-digit code. Open Trade Map, imports, world, and note the top ten markets by value and by growth. Click your three favourites and note their supplier countries and unit values. Open the Export Potential Map and see which of the three it ranks highest. Check tariffs and requirements for that one.

Twenty minutes, one shortlist, no guessing. Repeat once a year, because markets move.

The countries that buy your product are already on record. Start with the record, add what buyers are searching now, and choose a market on evidence rather than on a fair invitation.