The Key Indicators Database (KIDB) is maintained by the Statistics and Data Innovation Unit of the Economic Research and Development Impact Department within the Asian Development Bank (ADB), with the unit's staff serving as the focal points for, and administrators of, the database.

The data sets within the KIDB are generally sourced from the member economies of ADB. The agencies that contribute data sets are the central banks, ministries of finance, and national statistics offices from within these various economies.

There are some data sets in the KIDB from international agencies such as the United Nations and its associated organizations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Labour Organization, and the World Bank. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations provides data for agricultural production indexes, while data sets on the direction of trade, exchange rates, and international reserves are from the IMF. External indebtedness data are sourced from the World Bank.

Some data from international agencies are not publicly available via the KIDB, but there are ongoing efforts to gain permission from the original sources to house these data within the database. Nevertheless, these source data have been used to present the statistics in the economy and regional tables.

The Key Indicators Database is designed to support a wide variety of computers and mobile devices, and works best with the following specifications.

For desktop computers:

• Browser: Google Chrome (ver. 75 or later), Apple Safari (version 11 or later), Microsoft Edge (version 15 or later), or Mozilla Firefox (version 62 or later)
• Screen resolution: 1366x768 or higher
• Stable Internet connection

For smartphones and tablets:

• Operating system: Apple iOS 12 or later, or Android 6.x or later
• Browser: iOS Safari or Google Chrome
• Screen size: 375 x 667 points or higher
• Stable Internet connection

Data on balance of payments, external debt, government finance, labor force, money and interest rates, national accounts, prices, population, social indicators, and trade are available in the KIDB. The database is organized into eight themes or topics:

1. People
2. Economy and Output
3. Money, Finance, and Prices
4. Globalization
5. Transport and Communications
6. Energy and Electricity
7. Environment
8. Government and Governance

The People theme presents demographic indicators—such as the size and growth rates of populations; birth, death, and fertility rates; and age dependency ratios—together with information on international migration, urbanization, employment and unemployment, and health and education.

Economy and Output focuses on gross domestic product (GDP) levels and growth rates. It includes related statistics taken from the national accounts, such as gross national income, value added, consumption expenditure, capital formation, exports and imports, and gross domestic saving. This theme also covers production indicators.

Under Money, Finance, and Prices, the database offers indicators on inflation, money supply, interest rates, bank lending, official exchange rates, and stock markets.

Globalization gives the latest statistics on external trade, balance of payments, international reserves, capital flows, external indebtedness, and tourism.

The Transport and Communications theme covers statistics on road and rail networks, air passenger traffic, container port traffic, and motor vehicle injuries and fatalities.

Under Energy and Electricity, the database provides statistics on energy productivity, supplies and uses of primary energy, and electricity consumption and generation.

Environment includes indicators related to land use, forest resources, and air and water pollution.

The Government and Governance theme contains statistics on governments' tax revenue, fiscal balances, and expenditure on health services, education, social security, and welfare.

The KIDB is updated biannually, based on the available indicators in ADB’s flagship publication Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific and for selected SDG indicators in Basic Statistics.

The individual tables for each economy associated with Key Indicators are also available in the KIDB. For any given ADB regional member economy, users can download data on population, labor force, national accounts, production indexes, energy, price indexes, money and finance, government finance, external trade, balance of payments, international reserves, exchange rates, and external indebtedness.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015, calls on economies to begin efforts to achieve a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. There are 17 SDGs in total, with 169 targets to be monitored and reviewed using a set of global indicators. These will be compiled into an annual SDG progress report. The link to the goals and targets is now available, but the indicators for each SDG are still being finalized. See more at un.org/sustainabledevelopment.

Value-added trade accounting refers to the decomposition of gross export flows into distinct value-added categories. This is primarily performed to provide a more accurate measure for assessing an economy’s trade performance as it accounts for the foreign content of exports as well as the portion that is double counted due to back-and-forth trade transactions between economies. One such framework was introduced by Borin and Mancini in 2019, which decomposes bilateral exports into three main categories, namely domestic value-added, foreign value-added, and pure double-counting. 

The involvement of an economy in global value chains (GVCs) is quantified by removing the domestic value-added flowing to and being consumed directly by an importer from the total value of gross exports. In other words, once the portion of the value of gross exports attributed to direct trade is deducted from it, the remaining value will correspond to GVC-related trade. Using value-added trade accounting frameworks such as Borin and Mancini (2019), this value is comprised of the following: i) domestic value-added that is re-exported by the importer to eventually be absorbed abroad (REX), ii) domestic value-added that is re-exported by the importer to eventually be absorbed by the exporter (REF), iii) foreign value-added embedded in exports (FVA), and iv) pure double-counting. 

According to Borin and Mancini (2019), the GVC participation rate measures the extent of a country's involvement in global value chains. It is calculated by dividing the value-added attributed to GVC-related trade by the total value of gross exports.

The forward GVC participation rate refers to the proportion of domestic value-added (from a country's exports) that is re-exported to a third economy by the importer. This rate is expressed as a share of total exports.

The backward GVC participation rate indicates the share of foreign value-added in a country's total exports. It helps to identify the degree of foreign input embedded in a country's exports, which can potentially lead to double counting of value-added across different economies.

These rates provide insights into how countries contribute to and benefit from global value chains. They help policymakers and analysts understand the dynamics of international trade, the distribution of value-added across borders, and the implications for economic interdependencies and competitiveness in the global economy.

GVC participation by exporting sector refers to the breakdown of gross exports into value-added categories based on the sectors that physically perform the export activities. This measure focuses on where exports originate rather than where the value-added components originate from.

Unlike traditional measures that focus on the origin of value-added components, GVC participation by exporting sector emphasizes the sectors responsible for physically exporting goods. It provides insights into which sectors are actively involved in international trade activities.

This measure helps to analyze the specific sectors contributing to a country's exports and their role within global value chains. It allows policymakers and analysts to identify key sectors driving export performance and to assess the sectoral dynamics of global trade.

By understanding which sectors participate in global value chains through exports, policymakers can tailor strategies to support and enhance competitiveness in these sectors. It also helps in formulating policies that promote sector-specific integration into global markets.

GVC participation by origin sector refers to the breakdown of gross exports into value-added categories based on where the value-added components originate from. This measure focuses on the sectors that contribute to the value creation of exported goods, regardless of which sector physically performs the export activities.

Unlike GVC participation by exporting sector, which focuses on the sectors that physically export goods, GVC participation by origin sector highlights where the value-added components of exports originate. It provides insights into which sectors within a country's economy contribute to global value chains through their production processes.

This measure helps policymakers and analysts understand the structural composition of a country's exports in terms of value creation. It identifies the sectors that play crucial roles in adding value to exported goods, thereby shaping the country's competitive advantage and economic specialization.

By understanding which sectors contribute value-added components to exports, policymakers can formulate strategies to enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of these sectors. It also helps in designing policies that promote technological advancements, innovation, and integration into higher value-added segments of global value chains.

Average GVC production length, as defined by Wang et al. (2017), refers to the average number of stages involved in the production process that spans from the creation of domestic value-added in intermediate products to its final consumption. It measures the complexity and extent of value-added contributions across different stages of global value chains.

Revealed comparative advantage is an index used to assess an economy’s specialization or competitiveness in specific sectors. It is calculated by comparing the share of a sector in a country’s total exports to the share of that sector in world exports. A value greater than one indicates a comparative advantage in that sector, suggesting the country specializes in exporting those goods.

Export diversification refers to the variety of products an economy exports (product-level diversification) or the number of trading destinations for its exports (destination-level diversification). It is evaluated by measures such as the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), which indicates the concentration of exports. A lower HHI score signifies greater diversification, indicating that the economy export has a wider range of products or serves more diverse markets.

The agglomeration index, based on Baris et al. (2022), measures the extent to which value-added is sourced from and/or absorbed by domestic sectors of an economy, considering the production of final goods in other sectors. It helps assess the clustering of economic activities within a country and the interdependencies among sectors in terms of value creation and absorption.