Definition: Intra-firm exports and imports

Category: External trade

For a given country, intra-firm exports can be defined "narrowly" to include two different flows:
exports from parent firms to their affiliates abroad
exports by local affiliates of foreign firms from their parents

In a wider context, intra-firm exports may also be defined as all the exports of all the enterprises belonging to a resident truncated groups to all the related enterprises of the same group abroad.

Symmetrically, intra-firm imports for a given country may be defined narrowly as the sum of:
imports by parent firms from their affiliates abroad
imports by affiliates, located in the country, from their foreign parents

... or as the total imports of all the enterprises belonging to resident truncated groups from all related enterprises from the same group abroad.