Chile's economy is considered one of the most stable in South America. It also has the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in all of Latin America. According to the Economic Complexity Index (ECI), Chile's economy is the 61st most complex in the world. It also happens to be the 42nd largest economy in the world.
Now let's look at Chile's imports and exports separately.
Main import
Chile's largest import category is machinery.
Machinery accounted for nearly a quarter of total imports, thus reaching $15.2 billion. Under this sector, the most imported goods include computers, video monitors, broadcasting equipment, accounting for 1.8%, 1.2% and 2%, respectively.
Apart from machinery, the most imported commodities are minerals and means of transport. In fact, the three major categories of products imported by Chile are crude oil ($5.43 billion, accounting for 7.9%), refined oil ($5.33 billion, accounting for 7.7%) and automobiles ($3.8 billion, accounting for 5.5%).
Chile's top three import partners are China, the United States and Brazil. China accounted for 21% with $14.8 billion, the United States accounted for 20% with $14.0 billion, and finally, Brazil accounted for 7.7% with $5.31 billion. Crude oil is Chile's largest import item, supplied by Brazil (43%), Ecuador (36%) and Angola (6.4%).
Refined petroleum is Chile's second largest import.
About 90%, mainly supplied by the United States. After the United States, the next two largest suppliers of refined oil are Japan (4.5%) and the Netherlands (1.4%).
Automobiles are Chile's third-largest imported commodity, accounting for 5.5% of total imports. The top three countries supplying cars to Chile are South Korea (26%), Japan (22%) and the United States (10%).
Main export
Metals are Chile's largest export category
reached $23.2 billion, nearly a third of all exports. In this category, the three products with the largest export volume include refined copper, raw copper and copper wire, which accounted for 23%, 3.8% and 0.7% respectively.
The two largest categories of exports are minerals and vegetables
$20.5 billion and $7.43 billion, respectively. Copper ore is the second largest export commodity. It belongs to the minerals category and accounts for 21% of all Chilean exports.
Chile's top three export partners
They are China ($18.9 billion, or 25%), the United States ($9.3 billion, or 12%), and Japan ($7.81 billion, or 10%). Together, these three countries imported 47 percent of Chile's exports. %.
Chile happens to be the largest importer of refined copper, followed by the United States. On the other hand, copper ore is imported from Japan and China. In addition to copper ore and refined copper, raw copper ($1.23 billion) and kraft chemical wood pulp ($1.17 billion) are two other commodities that Chile imports.
The United States is China's second largest importer, responsible for importing fish fillets ($1.38 billion) and grapes ($694 million). Non-fillet frozen fish ($615 million) and fillets ($452 million) were the second and third largest exports to Japan.
Add up
While Chile's top sources of imports are China ($15.4 billion), the United States ($11.5 billion), Brazil ($5.32 billion), Argentina ($2.77 billion) and Germany ($2.63 billion), the top export destinations include China ($19.2 billion), the United States ($10.3 billion), Japan ($6.38 billion), South Korea ($4.06 billion) and Brazil ($3.44 billion).
Items that fall into its import category are automobiles, refined oil, crude oil, broadcast equipment and delivery trucks. In terms of export items, according to the 1992 revised HS (Harmonized System) classification, there are refined copper, copper ore, fish fillets, kraft chemical wood pulp and blister copper.
