Two ways to find something worth building: what people are reporting as problems, and what this country is paying foreigners for. Both are ranked; neither is combined into the other.
Country · 2019–2024 · 60,550 trade records
One dot is one manufactured product this country imports. Hover to see which; click for the pathway and what it might cost to start. Both axes are annual trade, on a log scale — each gridline is ten times the last — because the figures span three and a half orders of magnitude and a linear axis would stack all but the largest onto the origin. Computed Nov 10, 2026 · 00:00 UTC.
17 of 50 sit below the parity line — the country buys more of that product than it sells. That gap is the opportunity; the ones above it are already served by domestic makers. These are the top 50 manufactured products out of 424 scored.
| Product | HS code | Annual imports | Annual exports | Buys per unit sold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sugars; cane sugar, raw, in solid form, other than as specified in Subheading Note 2 to this chapter, not containing added flavouring or colouring matter | 170114 | $1.6B | $456.1M | 3.6x |
| Dog or cat food; (not put up for retail sale), used in animal feeding | 230990 | $390.9M | $309.5M | 1.2x |
| Whiskies | 220830 | $397.9M | $173.3M | 2.2x |
| Cocoa; butter, fat and oil | 180400 | $273.6M | $76.3M | 3.5x |
| Sugars; sucrose, chemically pure, in solid form, not containing added flavouring or colouring matter | 170199 | $96.8M | $1.6B | 0.0x |
| Dog or cat food; put up for retail sale, used in animal feeding | 230910 | $136.2M | $71.9M | 1.8x |
| Non-alcoholic beverages; other than non-alcoholic beer, n.e.c. in item no. 2202.10, not including fruit, nut or vegetable juices of heading no. 2009 | 220299 | $213.8M | $64.6M | 3.3x |
| Food preparations; n.e.c. in item no. 2106.10 | 210690 | $78M | $760.6M | 0.1x |
| Fish; frozen, n.e.c. in heading 0303, excluding fillets, fish meat of 0304, and edible fish offal of subheadings 0303.91 to 0303.99 | 030389 | $41.8M | $330.5M | 0.1x |
| Tobacco; other than homogenised or reconstituted or smoking | 240399 | $43.3M | $317.5M | 0.1x |
| Tobacco; partly or wholly stemmed or stripped | 240120 | $21.5M | $1.2B | 0.0x |
| Crustaceans; frozen, shrimps and prawns, excluding cold-water varieties, in shell or not, smoked, cooked or not before or during smoking; in shell, cooked by steaming or by boiling in water | 030617 | $17M | $4.3B | 0.0x |
| Food preparations; bakers' wares n.e.c. in heading no. 1605, whether or not containing cocoa; communion wafers, empty cachets suitable for pharmaceutical use, sealing wafers, rice papers and similar products | 190590 | $67.3M | $200.9M | 0.3x |
| Ethyl alcohol and other spirits; denatured, of any strength | 220720 | $471M | $195.3K | 2411.2x |
| Sugar confectionery; (excluding chewing gum, including white chocolate), not containing cocoa | 170490 | $29.8M | $202.8M | 0.1x |
| Chocolate and other food preparations containing cocoa; n.e.c. in chapter 18 | 180690 | $78.8M | $119.9M | 0.6x |
| Nuts and other seeds; whether or not containing added sugar, other sweetening matter or spirit (excluding ground-nuts except in mixtures) | 200819 | $54.7M | $110.8M | 0.4x |
| Sauces and preparations therefor; mixed condiments and mixed seasonings | 210390 | $29M | $121.7M | 0.2x |
| Food preparations; sweet biscuits, whether or not containing cocoa | 190531 | $13.5M | $343.5M | 0.0x |
| Oil-cake and other solid residues; whether or not ground or in the form of pellets, resulting from the extraction of soya-bean oil | 230400 | $10.8M | $963.7M | 0.0x |
| Extracts, essences and concentrates; of coffee, and preparations with a basis of these extracts, essences or concentrates or with a basis of coffee | 210111 | $17M | $517.2M | 0.0x |
| Flours, meals and pellets; of fish or of crustaceans, molluscs or other aquatic invertebrates | 230120 | $16.9M | $257.9M | 0.0x |
| Cocoa; powder, not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter | 180500 | $238.5M | $4.4M | 53.2x |
| Food preparations; pasta (excluding stuffed), cooked or otherwise prepared | 190230 | $32.4M | $39.7M | 0.8x |
| Oil-cake and other solid residues; whether or not ground or in the form of pellets, resulting from the extraction of oils, n.e.c. in heading no. 2306 | 230690 | $21.4M | $65.6M | 0.3x |
| Cocoa beans; whole or broken, raw or roasted | 180100 | $186.8M | $345.9K | 539.9x |
| Extracts, essences and concentrates; of tea or mate, and preparations with a basis of these extracts, essences or concentrates or with a basis of tea or mate | 210120 | $15.4M | $89.2M | 0.1x |
| Undenatured ethyl alcohol; of an alcoholic strength by volume of 80% vol. or higher | 220710 | $11M | $74.9M | 0.1x |
| Sugars; cane sugar, raw, in solid form, as specified in Subheading Note 2 to this chapter, not containing added flavouring or colouring matter | 170113 | $19.5M | $76.3M | 0.2x |
| Protein; concentrates and textured protein substances | 210610 | $19.8M | $56M | 0.3x |
| Cigarettes; containing tobacco | 240220 | $24M | $97.3M | 0.2x |
| Jams, fruit jellies, marmalades, purees and pastes; of fruit or nuts n.e.c. in heading no. 2007, cooked preparations (excluding homogenised), whether or not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter | 200799 | $11.6M | $131.4M | 0.0x |
| Starch; maize (corn) starch | 110812 | $6.9M | $273.8M | 0.0x |
| Crustacean preparations; shrimps and prawns, prepared or preserved, in airtight containers | 160529 | $3.3M | $498.8M | 0.0x |
| Molluscs; cuttle fish and squid, whether in shell or not, frozen | 030743 | $1.4M | $601M | 0.0x |
| Fish; fresh or chilled, catfish (Pangasius spp., Silurus spp., Clarias spp., Ictalurus spp.), excluding fillets, fish meat of 0304, and edible fish offal of subheadings 0302.91 to 0302.99 | 030272 | $35.8M | $3.5M | 9.9x |
| Spirits, liqueurs and other spirituous beverages; n.e.c. in heading no. 2208 | 220890 | $93M | $4.7M | 19.6x |
| Sugars; lactose and lactose syrup, containing by weight 99% or more lactose, expressed as anhydrous lactose, calculated on the dry matter | 170211 | $85.7M | $7.5M | 11.4x |
| Yeasts; active | 210210 | $36.1M | $2M | 17.3x |
| Chocolate & other food preparations containing cocoa; in blocks, slabs or bars weighing more than 2kg or in liquid, paste, powder, granular or other bulk form in containers or immediate packings, content exceeding 2kg | 180620 | $35.2M | $6.8M | 5.1x |
| Crustaceans; live, fresh or chilled, shrimps and prawns excluding cold-water varieties, in shell or not | 030636 | $16.6M | $28.4M | 0.5x |
| Food preparations; rusks, toasted bread and similar toasted products, whether or not containing cocoa | 190540 | $12.3M | $26.5M | 0.4x |
| Beer; made from malt | 220300 | $15.8M | $38.6M | 0.4x |
| Food preparations; of flour, meal, starch, malt extract or milk products, suitable for infants or young children, put up for retail sale | 190110 | $14.8M | $19.3M | 0.7x |
| Fish; fresh or chilled, n.e.c. in heading 0302, excluding fillets, fish meat of 0304, and edible fish offal of subheadings 0302.91 to 0302.99 | 030289 | $13.4M | $26.3M | 0.5x |
| Juice; of any single fruit, nut or vegetable n.e.c. in heading no. 2009, unfermented, not containing added spirit, whether or not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter | 200989 | $10.3M | $19.9M | 0.5x |
| Vodka | 220860 | $22.4M | $12.3M | 1.8x |
| Flour, meal and powder; of the products of chapter 8 | 110630 | $13M | $10.7M | 1.2x |
| Spirits obtained by distilling grape wine or grape marc | 220820 | $22M | $21M | 1.0x |
| Tobacco; smoking, water pipe tobacco as specified in Subheading Note 1 to this Chapter, whether or not containing tobacco substitutes in any proportion | 240311 | $22.5M | $29M | 0.7x |
Pick a dot to see what that product would take to make here.
Categories where people are reporting problems and the country imports heavily. A coincidence worth looking at — not a combined score. The two numbers count different things and are shown separately for that reason.
No category currently clears the bar on both sides. That is a real finding: it means the problems people are reporting and the goods the country buys abroad are not pointing at the same place yet.
Joined on the research category, which is the coarsest link available — eight categories cover every commodity. Treat it as a hint about where to look, not as a match between a reported problem and a product.
A ranking is only as honest as its exclusions.