How does Saint Helena’s trade profile look? Level of exports and imports over thirty years, structural composition, partner concentration, and the position on the economic-complexity frontier.
exports 2024$32.9M
imports 2024$53.1M
balance-$20.2M
eci rank#22 / 226
products exported306
Figure 1
Saint Helena: merchandise exports and imports, 1995-2024
Exports grew from $5.3M in 1995 to $32.9M in 2024, a CAGR of 6.5%. The merchandise balance sits at -$20.2M, which is -61% of exports , a simple scale normalisation over the available BACI series. Note that exports are f.o.b. and imports c.i.f., so a meaningful portion of the gap reflects freight and insurance baked into the import valuation rather than a real shortfall in receipts (CIF/FOB spreads typically run 5-10% per UNCTAD/IMF BOP methodology, but country-specific values vary). The more conventional open-economy metric is the current- account balance as % of GDP, reported on the /macro/SHN page.
Source: CEPII BACI 202501 (retrieved 2026-04-28), f.o.b. exports and c.i.f. imports, summed across all reporters.Figure 1b
The structural change in what a country exports, from agriculture to manufactures to services, or between HS sections, is one of the most studied transitions in development economics (Imbs & Wacziarg 2003; Hausmann, Hwang & Rodrik 2007). The chart below shows the five largest HS sections of Saint Helena’s exports in 2024, plotted back thirty years.
Figure 2
Top-5 HS sections of exports, 1995-2024
Figure 2b
Export basket by HS chapter, 2024 · top-30 $32.9M of $32.9M total
Figure 2c
Import basket by HS chapter, 2024 · top-30 $50.8M of $53.1M total
Who it sells to
Figure 3a
World map of export destinations, 2024
Figure 3b
Top 12 export destinations, 2024
Economic complexity
The Economic Complexity Index (ECI) of Hidalgo & Hausmann (2009, PNAS) ranks countries by the productive knowledge embedded in their export basket. Countries that export many products, and whose products are also exported by few others, score high. ECI is predictive of subsequent income growth and structural transformation; see Hausmann et al. (2014, The Atlas of Economic Complexity, MIT Press) for the full methodology and the comparative country atlas.
Figure 4a
Saint Helena: ECI trajectory, 1995-2024
Current ECI: 1.35, ranked #22 of 226 economies in 2024. ECI is zero-centered; positive values mean above-median complexity.
Method: Hidalgo & Hausmann (2009) “The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity” PNAS 106(26): 10570-10575. Applied to BACI RCA matrix.Figure 4b
Export concentration (HHI) and product count, 1995-2024
2024 HHI = 0.256, equivalent to about 3.9 equally-sized product lines.Saint Helena exports 306 distinct HS6 products. Rising HHI or falling effective-N indicates loss of diversification.
Revealed comparative advantage (Balassa 1965) says a country is specialised in a product when its share of that product’s world exports exceeds the country’s share of all world exports. A stronger version asks: which HS6 lines does the country lead the world in? The table below lists the ten largest export lines (by value) where Saint Helena ranks in the world top-5 in 2024, restricted to products with at least US$10M of global trade so tiny niches don’t crowd out economically meaningful positions. This is the “niche leadership” view: products the country is not just diversified in, but competitive at the frontier.
Figure 5
Saint Helena: top 10 HS6 lines with world top-5 rank, 2024
No data available for this chart.
Saint Helena does not currently rank in the world top-5 exporters of any HS6 line above the US$10M threshold in 2024.
Source: CEPII BACI 202501 (retrieved 2026-04-28), HS6 exporter rankings, 2024. Restricted to products with ≥ US$10M world trade. Method: Balassa (1965) RCA taken to its rank-based extreme, top-5 world rank is a stringent specialisation test.
Peer countries by structural profile
Which economies share the closest structural profile to Saint Helena? Each country is placed in a three-dimensional space of economic complexity (ECI), log GDP per capita, and log total exports, each standardised to zero mean and unit variance in 2024. The five nearest neighbours by Euclidean distance in that space are Saint Helena’s closest structural peers, similar on productive-capability, income level, and scale of external trade. This is a trade-specific adaptation of the synthetic-control “donor pool” logic (Abadie, Diamond & Hainmueller 2010).
Figure 6
Saint Helena: five closest structural peers, 2024
No data available for this chart.
Insufficient coverage across ECI, WDI GDP-pc, and BACI exports for Saint Helena to identify structural peers.
Method: z-score each dimension (ECI, log GDP-pc, log total exports) across the universe of countries with all three observations in the latest year; rank by Euclidean distance. Abadie, Diamond & Hainmueller (2010) “Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies,” JASA 105(490): 493-505.
Margins of export growth
Hummels & Klenow (2005, “The variety and quality of a nation’s exports,” American Economic Review 95(3): 704-723) decomposed cross-country export growth into the extensive margin (exporting more distinct HS6 lines) and the intensive margin (exporting more value per existing line). The decomposition is informative because the two margins respond to different policy levers: trade-cost reductions and discovery push the extensive margin (Melitz 2003), while productivity and demand push the intensive.
Figure 7
Margins of export growth, 2014-2024
Over 10 years, total exports grew at 5.7%/yr. Decomposition: HS6 line count moved from 302 to 306 (extensive margin 0.1%/yr); average value per line moved from $63K to $108K (intensive margin 5.5%/yr). The intensive margin dominates, which by Hummels-Klenow logic indicates growth via deepening sales of existing lines (productivity, scale, or quality).
Method: Hummels & Klenow (2005) AER 95(3): 704-723. Extensive margin = CAGR of distinct HS6 export lines. Intensive margin = CAGR of (total exports / line count). Total CAGR ≈ extensive + intensive (log-linear approximation).
Export basket on the complexity frontier
Figure 8
Saint Helena: export value vs. product complexity (PCI), 2024
Each dot is one HS6 product in Saint Helena’s basket with more than US$1M in exports in 2024 (long-tail marginal exports below that floor are filtered out so the scatter is legible; the filter drops many HS6 codes for small economies and few for large ones). Horizontal = export value (log), vertical = Product Complexity Index (PCI). Dots upper-right are high-value, high-complexity products (machinery, precision instruments). Lower-left products carry less productive knowledge per dollar. A basket shifted toward the upper-right correlates with higher ECI and higher income.
Related
Research index, analytical pieces grounded in BACI flows and gravity covariates
Sector monitor, quarterly deep dives on 12 HS-defined sectors
In 2024, the top three HS sections account for 86% of merchandise exports that map to an HS92 section, a rough measure of sectoral concentration at the coarsest classification level. Shares here are over BACI exports that carry a valid HS92 section mapping, so the five-section series does not sum to 100% of total exports: some HS6 codes (newer HS revisions, non-standard codes) fall outside the 21-section mapping. Note that the top-5 sections are selected by 2024 share, so a section that was dominant in 1995 but has since fallen out of the top 5 will not appear on the chart.
Source: CEPII BACI 202501 (retrieved 2026-04-28) crossed with HS92 section codes. Shares are over the HS6-mapped universe; HS6 codes without an HS92 section fall outside the 21-section totals.
Cell area is proportional to 2024 export value. The treemap shows the top 30 HS chapters (HS2 level) of Saint Helena’s exports; cells are colour-coded by HS section so structurally related chapters share a hue (e.g. minerals, machinery, textiles). The largest chapter, HS 03 , Fish and crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic invertebrates, represents 74.0% of the top-30chapter total shown. Compared to Figure 2’s five-section trajectory, this view exposes which specific chapters within the dominant sections drive the overall composition.
Source: CEPII BACI 202501 (retrieved 2026-04-28), f.o.b. exports of HS6 codes aggregated to HS2 chapters, 2024. Restricted to top 30 chapters by value.
Cell area is proportional to 2024 import value. The treemap shows the top 30 HS chapters (HS2 level) of Saint Helena’s imports; cells are colour-coded by HS section so structurally related chapters share a hue. The largest import chapter, HS 27 , Mineral fuels, mineral oils and products of their distillation; bituminous substances; mineral waxes, represents 21.1% of the top-30 chapter total shown. Read alongside Figure 2b to compare what Saint Helena sells abroad against what it buys in.
Source: CEPII BACI 202501 (retrieved 2026-04-28), c.i.f. imports of HS6 codes aggregated to HS2 chapters, 2024. Restricted to top 30 chapters by value.
Each country is shaded by the bilateral value of Saint Helena’s exports to it in 2024, binned into quintiles. Saint Helena itself is tinted in amber as the origin; white indicates destinations with no recorded bilateral flow. The map makes regional dependency structures visible, neighbours, former colonial ties, bloc partners, in ways a top-list ordering hides.
Partner concentration measures market exposure. The single largest destination absorbs 31% of Saint Helena’s exports; the top 3 together take 72%. Concentrated partner bases make bilateral shocks (trade wars, recessions) first-order.
Source: CEPII BACI 202501 (retrieved 2026-04-28), bilateral exports 2024. Shares are over total exports.
Method: PCI from Hausmann-Hidalgo (2009) spectral-eigenvector decomposition of the country-product RCA matrix. Basket restricted to HS6 exports > US$1M in the latest year.
Saint Helena trade-riskGlobal risk rank #133 of 200 (board)
supplier concentration96.7%
price stress 12m0.0%
price coverage0.0%
Dependency diagnosis
Vegetable preparations: tomatoes, whole or in pieces, prepared or preserved otherwise than by vinegar or acetic acid(200210): you import 100.0% from United Kingdom. STRUCTURAL Structural scarcity, world export HHI 0.52. Switching suppliers will not fix this; the world itself is concentrated (top alternatives: ITA 71.8%, ESP 5.7%, USA 3.5%, TUR 3.4%). Policy: stockpile, substitute the input, or invest in allied/domestic production.
Medicaments: containing hormones (but not insulin), adrenal cortex hormones or antibiotics, for therapeutic or prophylactic uses, packaged for retail sale(300439): you import 100.0% from United Kingdom. DIVERSIFIABLE Diversifiable, you are single-sourced but world supply is broad (HHI 0.09). Realistic alternatives: ITA 18.5%, DNK 14.8%, DEU 10.3%, AUT 8.6%. Policy: spread procurement across these suppliers.
Powder puffs and pads: for the application of cosmetics or toilet preparations(961620): you import 97.6% from United Kingdom. STRUCTURAL Structural scarcity, world export HHI 0.56. Switching suppliers will not fix this; the world itself is concentrated (top alternatives: CHN 74.4%, KOR 3.4%, USA 3.1%, MYS 3.0%). Policy: stockpile, substitute the input, or invest in allied/domestic production.
Athletics and gymnastics equipment(950691): you import 100.0% from United Kingdom. STRUCTURAL Structural scarcity, world export HHI 0.40. Switching suppliers will not fix this; the world itself is concentrated (top alternatives: CHN 62.5%, S19 6.9%, USA 5.1%, ITA 4.2%). Policy: stockpile, substitute the input, or invest in allied/domestic production.
Electro-mechanical domestic appliances: n.e.s. in heading no. 8509, with self-contained electric motor(850980): you import 98.7% from United Kingdom. STRUCTURAL Structural scarcity, world export HHI 0.39. Switching suppliers will not fix this; the world itself is concentrated (top alternatives: CHN 61.5%, DEU 9.1%, HUN 5.1%, NLD 3.1%). Policy: stockpile, substitute the input, or invest in allied/domestic production.
Wood: of bamboo, articles n.e.c. in heading no. 4414 to 4420 (excluding clothes hangers)(442191): you import 66.0% from United Kingdom. UNKNOWN World concentration unavailable for this product code.
Plastics: articles of apparel and clothing accessories (including gloves)(392620): you import 88.2% from United Kingdom. STRUCTURAL Structural scarcity, world export HHI 0.46. Switching suppliers will not fix this; the world itself is concentrated (top alternatives: CHN 67.2%, VNM 4.7%, CAN 4.6%, DEU 1.7%). Policy: stockpile, substitute the input, or invest in allied/domestic production.
Plastics: office or school supplies(392610): you import 100.0% from South Africa. STRUCTURAL Structural scarcity, world export HHI 0.36. Switching suppliers will not fix this; the world itself is concentrated (top alternatives: CHN 58.8%, DEU 5.7%, VNM 4.2%, NLD 2.9%). Policy: stockpile, substitute the input, or invest in allied/domestic production.
GeoDep 2022, world shares latest BACI year, Pink Sheet 2026M04. No real-time signal is implied.
where Saint Helena is exposed
Vegetable preparations: tomatoes, whole or in pieces, prepared or preserved otherwise than by vinegar or acetic acid (200210): imports 100% from United Kingdom (GBR). Ranked by import dependency (GeoDep 2022). Single-supplier concentration is the exposure. Model a supply shock →
Medicaments: containing hormones (but not insulin), adrenal cortex hormones or antibiotics, for therapeutic or prophylactic uses, packaged for retail sale (300439): imports 100% from United Kingdom (GBR). Ranked by import dependency (GeoDep 2022). Single-supplier concentration is the exposure. Model a supply shock →
Powder puffs and pads: for the application of cosmetics or toilet preparations (961620): imports 98% from United Kingdom (GBR). Ranked by import dependency (GeoDep 2022). Single-supplier concentration is the exposure. Model a supply shock →
Athletics and gymnastics equipment (950691): imports 100% from United Kingdom (GBR). Ranked by import dependency (GeoDep 2022). Single-supplier concentration is the exposure. Model a supply shock →
Electro-mechanical domestic appliances: n.e.s. in heading no. 8509, with self-contained electric motor (850980): imports 99% from United Kingdom (GBR). Ranked by import dependency (GeoDep 2022). Single-supplier concentration is the exposure. Model a supply shock →
where Saint Helena could grow
Watch movements: complete and assembled, with automatic winding (910820): proximity 0.03 to current capabilities, complexity PCI +3.66, world market $219.1m. Ranked by density × complexity (product space 2024). See product →
Surveying equipment: theodolites and tacheometers (901520): proximity 0.03 to current capabilities, complexity PCI +3.64, world market $767.1m. Ranked by density × complexity (product space 2024). See product →
Instruments and apparatus: for measuring or detecting alpha, beta, gamma, x-ray, cosmic or other ionising radiations, without a recording device (903089): proximity 0.03 to current capabilities, complexity PCI +3.84, world market $9.2bn. Ranked by density × complexity (product space 2024). See product →
Rubber: synthetic, acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR), latex, in primary forms or in plates, sheets or strip (400251): proximity 0.02 to current capabilities, complexity PCI +4.52, world market $1.0bn. Ranked by density × complexity (product space 2024). See product →
Watches: complete movements, unassembled or partly assembled (movement sets) (911011): proximity 0.03 to current capabilities, complexity PCI +3.14, world market $199.7m. Ranked by density × complexity (product space 2024). See product →