Import-Export Trade data source

[Purav Shah]

Hi,

Let me introduce myself to all of you.

I am Purav Shah, a Chemical Engineer and a management graduate based out of Mumbai.I'm involved in determining market demand for different chemicals in India.

Import-Export data of various items could probably help reduce information asymmetry & help in determining and planning capacities of different products.

I have subscribed to a couple of services which provide port wise imports of different chemicals. However, the information there isn't comprehensive & a lot is missed out in that data in addition to the data being quite expensive.

I want to know whether there is any organization which provides the import - export trade data that is comprehensive like any government approved organization. 
Also, want to know whether anyone is aware of any open source of data for trade through Indian ports. 

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Purav Shah

[Deepak Shenoy]

> I have subscribed to a couple of services which provide port wise imports of
> different chemicals. However, the information there isn't comprehensive & a
> lot is missed out in that data in addition to the data being quite
> expensive.

You can get it at http://commerce.nic.in/eidb/default.asp. This goes
upto 4 letter code detail, but it needs serious work in terms of
scraping/downloads.

This is usually outdated by 6 months or so. DGCIS Kolkata provides
more recent data at a cost.
http://www.dgciskol.nic.in/

Ports authority may be able to provide port-level summary data (I've
seen large level aggregates at various port sites too).

Cheers,

Deepak Shenoy
Company: http://www.marketvision.in
Blog: http://www.capitalmind.in
Twitter: @deepakshenoy

[Purav Shah]

Thanks Deepak,

The commerce.nic.in data has, as you rightly mentioned, a lag of 6 months atleast. Also, product level data is tough to get by. I also contacted Nhava Sheva port for the data but it seems they are not interested in sharing the data for free. 

So, the only way to get data is to take a subscription from data providers.

Out of the different sources tried, I think Online Telecom Network Services, Mumbai is the most reliable in terms of comprehensiveness of the data (Still it is not complete). In addition, one can try subscribing to data offered by India Infodrive, Kolkotta. However, the service levels there are pathetic and we get data with a lag of more than a month.

Does anyone know of any other paid service?

Regards,

Purav Shah