You may stumble upon some data that is not smooth from a time series perspective, and wonder if the data is correct. For example, Guyana’s imports in May 2025 increased almost 1000% compared to the previous month. See data extracted from UN Comtrade UI.

Further inquiry to the data provider confirmed that the increase was due to imports of the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, which was valued at around USD 2.5 billion.

This is one example that could be explained; others may not be as straightforward due to various reasons. For example, a certain commodity or partner might be suppressed due to data confidentiality, resulting in a break in the time series.