# What does increase globally by percentage mean?

For simplicity sake: Please can you explain to me what does this mean...."trade increases globally by 10%"?

assuming Country A = 100
assuming Country B = 100


does it mean....

1) 10% for each country so new trade means

 Country A = 110
Country B = 110


or does it mean...

2) 5% for country A and 5% for country B, so new trade is

 Country A =  105
Country B =  105


Thank you for your time and effort in helping me with this question

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It pretty much has to mean for each country. Otherwise, you get a different answer if you consider China and Taiwan two countries than you do if you consider them one country. And that wouldn't make any sense at all.

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I should not used the word Trade. I should have stated Sales Revenue. Will that make you think any different. thanks. –  DiscoDude Nov 16 '11 at 19:33
No, that makes no difference. You can't say the company raised revenues by 100% across the board if each of 10 departments raised revenue 10%. (Also, you can't add percentages of different things anyway. 10% of an apple pie and 10% of a banana fritter isn't 20% of anything.) –  David Schwartz Nov 16 '11 at 19:50
Thanks everyone, I am closing this off. –  DiscoDude Nov 17 '11 at 10:46
It does not mean (2). It might mean (1), or it might mean simply that the total sales revenue for all countries combined rises by $10$%. In your example this could mean that Country A stays at $100$ while Country B rises to $120$. It could even mean that Country A drops to $90$ while Country B rises to $130$. Any combination of changes resulting in a total of $220$, $10$% more than the initial $200$, would count as a global increase of $10$% under this interpretation. In this case there can be variation from one country to another, but the overall sales revenue goes up by $10$%.