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International Business Environment

  • EIU Country Reports via ABI/Inform (Proquest) - QUT Library Database - the ABI/Inform database contains many country report series the most well known of which is the EIU or Economist Intelligence Unit reports. Reports on other countries can be easily located from within the database by searching with the short title of the series, "country report" and appending the name of the country you wish to retrieve the report for i.e "country report africa EIU". 

  • EIU Country Data (QUT Library Database) - Useful for forecast macro-economics indicators for Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and all other locales globally. Additional guidance on how to query and retrieve data from EIU is available in the EIU Country Data video in Media Hub [2 Minute video].

  • UNCTAD - Part of the United Nations dealing with trade, investment, and development issues. Data, statistics and associated reports form usable sources of information for A2. 

  • World Trade Organisation (Trade & Tariffs) - The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade between nations.

  • IMF eLibrary - International Financial Statistics series - International Financial Statistics (IFS) is a standard source of statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. 

  • WorldBank - International Debt statistics series amidst other region and continent data are available through the WorldBank research portal. Aside from conventional library items (journals, books, some database items) consider using the catalogue as an alternative tool for locating IMF and WorldBank publications including the series Regional Economic Outlook which supply much information on economic development and capacity on various regions.

  • COMTRADE - Trade, Transport and Travel Dashboard - Comtrade is part of the United Nations Statistics Division and is responsible for compiling and disseminating global statistical information. See http://data.un.org/ for all available UN statistics websites.

  • ABI/Inform (Proquest) QUT Library Database - Market and company research alongside news and scholarly (academic) information form the core collection of this database. This database contains country, industry and market reports. Further guidance on searching and finding information on this database are available in the ProQuest ABI/Inform LibGuide.

  • Passport (QUT Library Database) - A market research database with reports and data on industries, economies and consumers internationally. Published by Euromonitor International. An excellent source of trend data for price, consumption and trade data for a variety of industries.

  • PRS Country Data (QUT Library Database) - PRS' rating system assesses countries based on political, economic, and financial sources of risk. This database provides a high level view of country risk from a governance perspective rather than a purely economics or financials with ratings based on government stability, socioeconomic conditions, internal and external conflict, corruption, "Law and Order," and ethnic tensions.

  • MarketLine (QUT Library Database) - Public company, industry and country information extending across over 200 countries and every major industry sector. PESTLE analyses are available under Analysis - Countries & Cities - Country Profiles.

  • Factiva (QUT Library Database) - Australian and international newspapers and journals plus global company information. Extensive company information is provided, including financial data for more than 42,500 worldwide companies (from Reuters Investor) as well as access to historical market data and interactive charting. Tip: filter your search upon subject and publication - targeting national newspapers for more in depth commentary and analysis. More guidance available via the QUT Library.

  • IBISWorld (QUT Library Database) - Key statistics and analysis on market characteristics, operating conditions, current and historical performance, a five-year forecast and major industry participants. Industry level reports are available for tourism and travel.

Global Social Trends & Indicators

  • OECD Social Expenditure Statistics - TThe OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) has been developed in order to serve a growing need for indicators of social policy. It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and (mandatory and voluntary) private social expenditure at programme level as well as net social spending indicators.
  • United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - The vast majority of information on UN websites will be on governance and advocacy - information will tend to be: treaties, memorandum, resolutions amongst more usable higher level reports that summarise and present indicators. There is a considerable volume of information on the Sustainable Goals website. To make links between usable social indicators consider the impact of the human environments and social outcomes. Other statistical series report social, employment, housing data are linked off this page as are may be used for your own investigation.
  • WorldBank Governance Indicators - The quality of the business environment is tied to the quality of the governance associated with a country particularly regulatory quality. WorldBank aggregates and measures the quality of governance at country level  and as a subset of this provides
  • ILOSTAT - Yearly data of Total and Economically active population, Employment, Unemployment, Hours of Work, Wages, Labour Cost, Consumer Price Indices, Occupational Injuries, Strikes and Lockouts: 1969-2005.
  • UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous People: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday, 13 September 2007,
  • UN  Paris Agreement - A major global initiative to coordinate climate change mitigation through both market-based and governance efforts. Information of most use from this website will include reports that outline the structure and effect of investment efforts on certain industry sectors such as primary industries. Demography will also feature as a factor in many reports as income and household expenditure will effect consumption and energy usage. 
  • European Union  - See also EuStat, helpful for comparisons based on trade and industry data.
  • NAFTA - North American free Trade Agreement, statistics for raw materials export and imports are available via the WorldBank. The data provide a high level view of materials trade between countries useful for providing context for economic scale.
  • World bank Country Surveys  - The World Bank Group Country Opinion Survey (COS) Program systematically measures and tracks the perceptions of the World Bank Group's clients, partners, and other stakeholders who are development practitioners in client countries across the globe.
  • World Values Survey - The World Values Survey provides data on socio-cultural and political change worldwide. The WVS consists of national sample surveys in over 90 countries, using a common questionnaire with variables on beliefs, values, economic development, democratisation, religion, gender equality, social capital, and subjective well-being. 
  • PRS Country Data - QUT Library Database - International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) ratings, which publishes current risk ratings for economic, financial and political risk for 140 developed, emerging and frontier markets. To effectively use this resource refer to the ICRG Methodology which explains various scores and ratings used in the reports. More guidance is provided via an instructional video linked here.
  • The World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Report -Report on the competitiveness of nations, ranking and analysing how a nation’s environment creates and sustains the competitiveness of enterprises. Note: This report was last published in 2020. For other WEF reports, review the WEF publications page. 
Sources of information and guidance for finding information on the international business environment
  • Last Updated: Jun 2, 2025 9:17 AM
  • URL: https://libguides.library.qut.edu.au/bsb108
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Subjects: Business / General business
Tags: BSB108