Value Added: Trade

Think of it this way

It is everything that happens between the factory and your home.

What is Value Added: Trade?

Wholesale and retail together. What it contributes to put a product within reach of whoever buys it: distribution, warehouses, stores and e-commerce.

How to read Value Added: Trade

They are shown together because separately they are two lines telling the same story. It is one of the largest blocks of GDP, ahead of manufacturing.

What Value Added: Trade means for the market

It closely follows consumption, so it moves with it. In a demand-driven recession it suffers sooner than professional services.

Where the money flows

GDP can be measured in three ways that give the SAME figure: by spending (who buys), by production (who makes it) and by income (who earns it). This version uses the second: the value added of each industry, which is what it produces minus what it bought from others to produce it. Subtracting those purchases is what avoids counting twice the steel that goes into a car. The “By spending” version of the same chart splits the total the other way, which is why none of its lines match these: they do not measure different things, they divide the same thing differently.

What to watch in Value Added: Trade

Look at it together with Consumption in the “By spending” version: they are the same activity seen from both sides of the counter.

It does not measure liquidity: it is the part of GDP produced by this sector.