Case 9 · All chains
Which traded goods, and which economies' import baskets, are most fragile to a supply shock?
A method for “evaluating and ranking the supply fragility of individual traded goods”, and a country measure of “supply shock vulnerability based on the composition of their individual import baskets”.
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Chokepoints measured by “production network centrality”: nodes that lie on many production paths, such as “fertiliser production in the Middle East”.
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Ranks systemically important economies in the trade network with “a framework for ranking jurisdictions based on trade size and trade interconnectedness indicators”, using IMF Direction of Trade Statistics for 2000 and 2010.
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A dataset of the traded products, components and materials of solar PV, wind turbines and EVs that flags “products with supply risks due to high market concentration levels”.
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The papers’ questions measured again on UN Comtrade records. Each reading below is written from these numbers, not from the papers.
Most concentrated in 2024: Cobalt ore (exporter HHI 0.72; DR Congo 84.5% of world exports). 24 of 85 stages above 0.25.
| 1 | Cobalt ore | 0.721 | DR Congo 84.5% |
| 2 | Lithium hydroxide | 0.605 | China 76.7% |
| 3 | Lithium carbonate | 0.589 | Chile 73.8% |
| 4 | Bauxite | 0.506 | Guinea 68.3% |
| 5 | Cobalt intermediates, oxides and hydroxides | 0.441 | DR Congo 65.7% |
| 6 | Smartphones | 0.441 | China 65.2% |
| 7 | Permanent magnets of metal (NdFeB, SmCo) | 0.422 | China 63.6% |
| 8 | Cathode active material | 0.398 | Korea 56.3% |
| 9 | Photoresists and photographic chemicals (side input) | 0.387 | Japan 60.1% |
| 10 | Lithium-ion cells and packs | 0.377 | China 60.2% |
| 11 | Anode graphite (artificial) | 0.373 | China 59.7% |
| 12 | Solar modules | 0.355 | China 57.3% |
| 13 | Nickel mattes and intermediates (incl. MHP) | 0.348 | Indonesia 57% |
| 14 | Iron ore (fines, lump, pellets) | 0.333 | Australia 51.9% |
| 15 | Lithium ore (spodumene concentrate) | 0.302 | Australia 52.8% |
| 16 | Woven and knitted fabric | 0.292 | China 52.8% |
| 17 | Rare-earth ore (no own code) | 0.290 | Australia 51.5% |
| 18 | Printed circuit boards (bare) | 0.284 | China 50.5% |
| 19 | Natural graphite | 0.280 | China 50.4% |
| 20 | Rare-earth metals and alloys | 0.264 | Vietnam 38.5% |
| 21 | Flat panel display modules | 0.260 | China 37.5% |
| 22 | Wind turbines | 0.255 | China 40.2% |
| 23 | Nickel ore | 0.254 | Philippines 47.2% |
| 24 | Quartz | 0.252 | United States 44.7% |
| 25 | Potash (potassium chloride) | 0.250 | Canada 42.1% |
| 26 | Solar cells | 0.247 | China 44.2% |
| 27 | Laptops and computer units | 0.233 | China 43.5% |
| 28 | Polysilicon (99.99% and purer) | 0.231 | Germany 34% |
| 29 | Bituminous coal (incl. coking coal) | 0.229 | Australia 42.4% |
| 30 | Silicon metal (below 99.99%) | 0.223 | China 42.7% |
| 31 | Polyester fibre and filament | 0.213 | China 42.4% |
| 32 | Raw cotton | 0.201 | Brazil 31.5% |
| 33 | Pig iron | 0.200 | Brazil 36.8% |
| 34 | Phone and computer parts (assembled boards and others) | 0.199 | China 36.3% |
| 35 | Wheat, maize and soybeans | 0.186 | Brazil 34.4% |
| 36 | Alumina | 0.180 | Australia 34.8% |
| 37 | Battery parts (separators, cans, other parts) | 0.177 | China 37.3% |
| 38 | Calcined petroleum coke (anode input) | 0.177 | United States 34.7% |
| 39 | Cotton yarn | 0.175 | India 32.8% |
| 40 | Phosphate fertilisers (DAP, MAP) | 0.174 | Morocco 27.9% |
| 41 | Rare-earth compounds (oxides, carbonates) | 0.172 | Myanmar 32.7% |
| 42 | Doped wafers | 0.161 | Japan 28.5% |
| 43 | Static converters (incl. solar inverters) | 0.160 | China 37.5% |
| 44 | Integrated circuits | 0.157 | Taiwan 29.6% |
| 45 | Electrical steel | 0.155 | China 30.2% |
| 46 | Copper concentrate | 0.146 | Chile 29.2% |
| 47 | Discrete semiconductors (diodes, transistors, thyristors) | 0.145 | China 32.5% |
| 48 | Gallium, germanium, indium (unwrought) | 0.140 | China 25.4% |
| 49 | Chip-making machines (side input) | 0.136 | Japan 22.3% |
| 50 | Ferro-alloys | 0.136 | Indonesia 32.1% |
| 51 | Phosphoric acid | 0.134 | Morocco 28% |
| 52 | Phosphate rock | 0.132 | Jordan 22.8% |
| 53 | Mattes, blister and anodes | 0.129 | Zambia 29% |
| 54 | Coke | 0.127 | China 20.1% |
| 55 | Battery-electric and plug-in cars | 0.127 | Germany 25.7% |
| 56 | Refined copper cathode | 0.116 | DR Congo 23.3% |
| 57 | Direct-reduced iron | 0.114 | Russia 19.8% |
| 58 | Clothing (knitted and woven) | 0.111 | China 27.9% |
| 59 | PTA and ethylene glycol | 0.107 | Saudi Arabia 18.6% |
| 60 | Flat-rolled steel (hot, cold, coated) | 0.102 | China 26% |
| 61 | Olefins and aromatics | 0.098 | Korea 25.5% |
| 62 | PTA, ethylene glycol, vinyl chloride | 0.093 | China 16.1% |
| 63 | Ammonia | 0.089 | Trinidad and Tobago 18.7% |
| 64 | Semi-finished steel (slabs, billets) | 0.087 | Russia 20.7% |
| 65 | Bars, profiles, sheet and foil | 0.086 | China 23.9% |
| 66 | Natural gas and LPG | 0.085 | United States 19.3% |
| 67 | Power transformers | 0.082 | China 20.5% |
| 68 | Electric motors (multi-phase AC, large DC) | 0.081 | Germany 16.9% |
| 69 | Natural gas | 0.079 | Australia 13.6% |
| 70 | Passenger cars | 0.079 | Germany 17.3% |
| 71 | Synthetic rubber (SBR) | 0.072 | Korea 16.6% |
| 72 | Nitrogen fertilisers (urea, ammonium nitrate) | 0.071 | Russia 18.3% |
| 73 | Insulated wire and cable | 0.071 | China 20.3% |
| 74 | Structures, cans and containers | 0.070 | China 21.1% |
| 75 | Car parts and engines | 0.068 | Germany 14.3% |
| 76 | Car tyres | 0.067 | China 19.5% |
| 77 | Crude oil | 0.067 | Saudi Arabia 14.2% |
| 78 | Film, sheets and packaging | 0.064 | China 17.2% |
| 79 | Polymers (PE, PP, PVC, PET, PS) | 0.056 | United States 13.6% |
| 80 | Ferrous scrap | 0.055 | United States 14% |
| 81 | Unwrought aluminium | 0.053 | Canada 11.5% |
| 82 | Light oils (naphtha, with gasoline) | 0.051 | United States 13.8% |
| 83 | Aluminium scrap | 0.050 | United States 15% |
| 84 | Wire, strip and foil | 0.050 | Germany 12.1% |
| 85 | Copper scrap | 0.046 | United States 14.7% |
None: this case is the map the other scenarios start from
Concentration is not the same as irreplaceability: the BIS bulletin weighs centrality against trade elasticities, and some concentrated goods are easy to source elsewhere. Codes mix products (see each stage's caveat), production that never trades is invisible, and indirect exposure through inputs is larger than direct trade shows (Baldwin, Freeman and Theodorakopoulos, further reading). Korniyenko, Pinat and Dew build their ranking on a product-level network of their own, and Massara and Errico rank economies, not goods.
datasteg: the flow sites
money-flow
Where money is made and where it goes: central bank and bank money, and cross-border positions by country pair.
Open money-flowtrade-flowYou are here
The world trade network and ten product chains from ore to product, with the events that moved them.
global-network
Funding and trade together: how economies earn, who funds whom against who trades with whom, and what past shocks did to both.
Open global-network