Towards the measurement of electromobility in international trade

This document, which was prepared as part of a collaborative project between the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), provides a methodology for disaggregating electric and conventional buses into their parts, in order to analyse international trade flows in electromobility components. The vectors developed are based on the 2017 version of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System and include all parts needed to build electric or conventional (diesel) buses. The vectors capture global trade related to parts on three levels: raw materials, semi-manufactured parts and manufactured parts. Disaggregation into different parts also enables reconstruction of global value chains for electric buses and identification of the key suppliers of inputs at all three product levels. The methodology can also be employed to determine prospects for productive integration in the manufacturing of buses in Latin America and the Caribbean.