Middle East and North Africa: Statistics

Country Profiles and Databases for Business

The databases below offer country profiles that are regularly updated, mostly annually. In addition, there are country profiles from various vendors in several of our article databases. Below this box there are links to some of these reports (organized by vendor name), and where useful and possible, a couple of RSS feeds that show some of the latest reports in those databases.

Business Source Premier from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Searches business publications; includes company, country, and industry reports. Good coverage of scholarly business publications. Mostly 1984 - present.
In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 1,570 journals. This database contains popular business publications such as Business Week, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review, and hundreds of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. Also included is Wall Street Words, a dictionary of financial terms, linked directly to words within the citations and full text. Full text backfiles go as far back as January of 1990, while indexing and abstract backfiles go as far back as January of 1984.

Doing Business
From the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Select the country of interest in drop down box under Explore Economy Data.
Market Research Library
The Country Commercial Guides are especially useful. Other content types require registration.

Mergent Online from Mergent This link opens in a new window
Provides information and data on U.S. and international companies, including annual reports and SEC filings, institutional holdings, FactSheets, Supply Chain reports, etc.
Supply Chain reports cover US public companies primarily in the tech, biotech, and financial sectors. They include information on competitors (by product), customers, market structure, and more. The information is drawn from SEC filings, trade articles, and more. Formerly called Horizon Reports.
Passport This link opens in a new window
On first use only, acknowledgement of privacy and security policy required.
Data, reports and analysis about countries, industries, companies and consumers. Includes: economic and social data for ~200 countries; market research reports for ~80 countries; company and consumer profiles. We do NOT subscribe to the Sustainability module.
Video demo on how to search in Passport.
Economic and social indicator data redistributed from IMF, UN, World Bank, OECD. Annual data only.

Political Risk Yearbook
Longer (40-70+ pages) profiles of 100 countries, developed and developing only. These profiles are great for information about the political scene, and the economy.
MU community only.

Preview

Included here are a wide variety of statistical resources that contain some information on the Middle East and North Africa.

Boxes on this Page

Stats from International Organizations--UN, EU, IMF

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)

Country Profiles and Databases for Business

Country Rankings

Reference Books at MU

Stats from International Organizations--UN, EU, IMF

Although these sites are produced by organizations such as the EU, they contain data on MENA countries and industries.

European Commission - Trade
EuroStat
This is the EU's main statistical site. Registration required for at least parts of the site. ""Eurostat’s main role is to process and publish comparable statistical information at European level. ... Eurostat does not collect data. This is done in Member States by their statistical authorities. They verify and analyze national data and send them to Eurostat. Eurostat’s role is to consolidate the data and ensure they are comparable, using harmonized methodology
IMF Data and Statistics
For free data in particular, look at their World Economic Outlook database.
We also subscribe to their online data database International Financial Statistics.
International Trade Statistics (From the International Trade Centre)
UNCTAD and the WTO produce this site.

OECD iLibrary from OECD This link opens in a new window
Portal for publications and data of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).
Subscription ceased after 2020. Content through 2020 is accessible, but more recent content is not.
Includes time series data, annual reports, journals, working paper series, and more.

UNESCO - Institute for Statistics
Data on the four big themes that UNESCO tracks (Education, Literacy, Science & Technology, Culture & Communication)
United Nations - Demographic and Social Statistics
Here you'll find tabular data on countries by theme. Some data are in downloadable spreadsheets. Much of this data corresponds to the UN's Demographic Yearbook.
World Bank Data Catalog
The World Bank has recently made lots of their data available free. This includes their World Development Indicators, Global Development Finance, African Development Indicators, and more.
World Economic Outlook database (IMF)
Includes imports and exports data, some commodity pricing and more.
CESSDA - Council of European Social Science Data Archives
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
Compendium - Cultural Trends and Policies in Europe
From the Council of Europe / ERICarts (European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research). "... a web-based and permanently updated information and monitoring system of national cultural policies in Europe. It is a long term project which aims to include all 50 member states co-operating within the context of the European Cultural Convention."

Country Rankings

Doing Business - Economy Rankings (World Bank)
10 measures related to ease of doing business ...
Freedom House
This well-established organization ranks countries based on levels of freedom of the press, and on political rights and civil liberties available.
Human Development Report (UN)
Rankings by various economic and social indicators.
Transparency International
This relatively new NGO (founded in 1993) tries to measure levels of corruption in countries, and from both viewpoints: in which countries are you most likely to need to pay bribes; and from which countries are corporations most likely to be willing to pay bribes.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)

The EIU is a well-known provider of information and analysis about countries; we have access to their content through databases from several vendors. Unfortunately, the reports often get "sliced and diced" into sections in these databases! Once you're in one of the databases, usually you will get more manageable results by searching on 'eiu and country-name'.

The EIU publications are: ViewsWire, Country Data, Country Monitor, and Country Reports.

EIU Country Data (in ABI-Inform Trade & Industry)
Here you can get the statistical data about individual countries, and in a spreadsheet!
Add 'and country-name' to the search box to get the data for the country of interest.
EIU Country Profiles (in Bus. Source Premier)
The database vendor Ebsco really breaks these up. I suggest that you add 'and country-name' to your search to bring the reports together.
EIU Country Viewswire (in Bus Insights - Essentials)
Just enter your country name in the 'Search within this publication' box.
Look for the Country Outlook sections: they are usually the most substantive.
Also available in the ABI/Inform Global database, though I prefer this. Covers 2001 - present.
EIU Country ViewsWire (in ABI/Inform Global)
If you prefer the ProQuest interface, this publication is available in ABI/Inform Global. 2003 - present.

Reference Books at MU

International Petroleum Encyclopedia by Joseph Hilyard, editor
Publication Date: 2010
Online only. Click on title for bibliographic record and access to e-version.
The Middle East and North Africa by Europa Publications
Call Number: DS 49 .M5 Raynor Reference
Publication Date: 2013
In print only. Click on title for bibliographic record.
International trade statistics yearbook by United Nations Statistical Office
Call Number: HF 91 .U473 Raynor Reference
Publication Date: 2010
In print only. Click on title for bibliographic record.
International yearbook of industrial statistics by United Nations Industrial Development Organization
Call Number: HC10 .H34 Raynor Reference
Publication Date: 2012
In print only. Click on title for bibliographic record.
International Historical Statistics by B. R. Mitchell
Call Number: HA4675 .M55 2007 Raynor Reference
Publication Date: 2007-11-19
In print only. Click on title for bibliographic record.