This index is generally accepted as a proxy for the price of developing country imports of manufactures in U.S. dollar terms. Bank procurement officers also utilize MUV in assessing prospective cost escalation for imported goods in Bank-financed infrastructure and other operations. DECPG is tasked with producing regular updates of the index, timed to coincide with economic projections accompanying Global Economic Prospects (Autumn) and Global Developments Finance (Spring). The index is a weighted average of export prices of manufactured goods for the G-5 economies (the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom), with local-currency based prices converted into current U.S. dollars using market exchange rates. Weights are the relative share in G-5 exports of manufactured goods to developing countries in a base year (currently 1995), with values: U.S. (32.2%), Japan (35.6%), Germany (17.4%), France (8.2) and United Kingdom (6.6%). The MUV tends to be dominated by movements in the cross exchange rates between the dollar-yen, -euro and -sterling. At a time of dollar depreciation, for example, the index will rise, suggesting higher-dollar-based prices from non-U.S. G-5 countries. In contrast, a rising dollar will tend to lower growth in the MUV, as diminishing values of local-currency prices in dollar terms dominate the movements of MUV. The current file contains historical data from 1960 through 2007 and projections through 2020. The data is available below in Excel files.
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