This article documents how to extract country-level, industry-level value-added data from UNIDO's industrial statistics database "INDSTAT."
No official API documentation is published, but data can be retrieved using the browser's internal API.
Background
When researching overseas food market sizes or manufacturing sector scales, UNIDO INDSTAT is one of the most reliable data sources available.
However, the official site (stat.unido.org) is protected by Cloudflare security, making standard scraping impossible.
This article records the method that actually worked.
What Is UNIDO
UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) is a UN agency that collects and publishes manufacturing statistics from countries worldwide. INDSTAT is a database organizing manufacturing data from 170+ countries by industrial classification (ISIC).
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Official Name | UNIDO INDSTAT Rev.4 |
| URL | https://stat.unido.org |
| Classification | ISIC Rev.4 (2-digit codes: Food=10, Chemicals=20, Motor Vehicles=29, etc.) |
| Available Indicators | Value added, output, employment, number of establishments, wages, capital investment |
| Country Coverage | 170+ countries |
| Cost | Free (no registration required) |
| Update Frequency | 1–2 times per year |
Three Barriers to Data Retrieval
Retrieving UNIDO data involves three hurdles: Cloudflare bot protection, undocumented API specifications, and missing China data.
Each is explained below.
Barrier 1: Cloudflare Bot Protection
stat.unido.org is protected by Cloudflare Turnstile.
Standard HTTP requests (requests, curl, etc.) cannot access it.
Solution: Use a browser automation tool (Playwright) with stealth mode (playwright-stealth) to pass Cloudflare, then call the API from within the browser.
Barrier 2: Undocumented API
UNIDO does not publish official API documentation.
The endpoint and parameters must be identified by analyzing requests in the browser's Developer Tools (Network tab).
Below are the API specifications discovered through analysis.
Endpoint Information:
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Endpoint | https://stat.unido.org/portal/dataset/getData |
| Method | POST |
| Content-Type | application/json |
Request Parameters:
| Parameter | Example Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| datasetId | 125 | INDSTAT Rev.4 ID (Rev.3 is 110) |
| datIns | "25 Sep 2025" | Dataset last update date |
| countryCode | "764" | ISO 3166-1 numeric (3-digit). Thailand=764 |
| periods | [] | Empty array retrieves all periods |
| variableCode | "20" | Indicator to retrieve. 20=Value Added |
variableCode List:
| Code | Indicator |
|---|---|
| 01 | Number of establishments |
| 04 | Number of employees |
| 05 | Wages and salaries |
| 14 | Output |
| 20 | Value added |
| 21 | Gross fixed capital formation |
| 31 | Female employees |
Response Fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| p | Year (e.g., "2021") |
| a | ISIC code ("10"=Food manufacturing, "C"=Total manufacturing) |
| v | Value in local currency |
| u | Value in US dollars |
Barrier 3: Missing China Data
China does not submit ISIC-classified data to UNIDO.
This is because China uses its own industrial classification (GB/T).
To obtain China's food manufacturing data, manual retrieval from the National Bureau of Statistics (data.stats.gov.cn) with USD conversion is required.
Key Country Codes
Country codes use ISO 3166-1 numeric (3-digit numbers). Note: these are NOT the 2-letter ISO codes (JP, TH, etc.).
| Code | Country | Code | Country | Code | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 392 | Japan | 764 | Thailand | 840 | United States |
| 156 | China (no data) | 704 | Vietnam | 276 | Germany |
| 410 | South Korea | 360 | Indonesia | 826 | United Kingdom |
| 356 | India | 608 | Philippines | 250 | France |
| 076 | Brazil | 458 | Malaysia | 484 | Mexico |
| 158 | Taiwan | 702 | Singapore | 643 | Russia |
ISIC Rev.4 Major Industry Codes (2-digit)
Food is ISIC 10. Chemicals is 20. Motor vehicles is 29. Using the wrong industry code returns completely different data.
| Code | Industry |
|---|---|
| 10 | Food products |
| 11 | Beverages |
| 13 | Textiles |
| 17 | Paper and paper products |
| 20 | Chemicals |
| 21 | Pharmaceuticals |
| 22 | Rubber and plastics |
| 24 | Basic metals |
| 26 | Computer, electronic and optical products |
| 27 | Electrical equipment |
| 29 | Motor vehicles |
Retrieval Procedure
The only required libraries are playwright and playwright-stealth.
Steps:
- Access stat.unido.org with Playwright and pass Cloudflare (wait approximately 8 seconds)
- Call the API via in-browser JavaScript execution (page.evaluate)
- Extract data from the JSON response where ISIC code = "10" (food) for the latest year
- Loop through multiple countries
Key Points:
- Execute fetch via page.evaluate inside the browser. Use the browser's session cookies, not Python's requests library
- Once past Cloudflare, the API can be called repeatedly within that browser session
- There is no bulk-download API. Requests must be made one country at a time
Summary
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Data Reliability | High (collected by a UN agency from national governments) |
| Retrieval Difficulty | Moderately high (requires Cloudflare bypass and API reverse-engineering) |
| Limitations | No data for China, Cambodia, or Myanmar |
| Alternative | Manual search on the website (easier for small volumes) |
| Update Check | New data is available when the datIns parameter date changes |
Sources
UNIDO Database:
- UNIDO INDSTAT Rev.4 Data Search https://stat.unido.org/data/table
- UNIDO INDSTAT Dataset Overview https://stat.unido.org/database/INDSTAT%202%20ISIC%20Revision%204
- UNIDO Statistics Data Portal https://stat.unido.org
- UNIDO INDSTAT User Guide (PDF) https://stat.unido.org/content/learning-center/indstat-database-user-guide
Industry Classification:
- ISIC Rev.4 Full Structure (UN Statistics Division) https://unstats.un.org/unsd/classifications/Econ/isic
- ISIC Rev.4 Division 10: Manufacture of food products https://unstats.un.org/unsd/classifications/Econ/Structure
- ISO 3166-1 numeric country codes (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_numeric
China Data Supplementation:
- China National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Annual Data https://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=C01
- China Industrial Classification (GB/T 4754-2017) to ISIC Rev.4 Correspondence https://unstats.un.org/unsd/classifications/Econ/Structure
Technical (Cloudflare Bypass / Browser Automation):
- Playwright Official Documentation https://playwright.dev/python/docs/intro
- playwright-stealth (Cloudflare Turnstile bypass) https://pypi.org/project/playwright-stealth/
- Cloudflare Turnstile Official Documentation https://developers.cloudflare.com/turnstile/
Related International Statistical Databases:
- World Bank World Development Indicators https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators
- UN Comtrade (Trade Statistics) https://comtradeplus.un.org
- OECD STAN (Structural Analysis Statistics) https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/stan-structural-analysis-statistics.html
- ADB Key Indicators (Asian Development Bank) https://kidb.adb.org/kidb/
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