OECD Short-term Economic Statistics Scraper

OECD Short-term Economic Statistics Scraper

Scrape OECD short-term economic statistics for any country, up to a million records per run. Get Composite Leading Indicators, Consumer Prices, Industrial Production, Business and Consumer Surveys, Financial Market Indicators, Monetary Aggregates or the Key Economic Indicators in a flat, analysis-ready format. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The OECD publishes critical short-term economic data, but downloading it manually means navigating their data portal, selecting filters, and exporting file by file. This Actor reads the OECD SDMX API directly, letting you pull any of eight short-term dataflows for one country, a list of countries, or all countries at once, optionally limited to a period range. Each record lands in your dataset with a consistent schema, ready for analysis.

Who uses it	What they scrape OECD for
Macroeconomic analysts	Monitor turning points in the business cycle with the latest Composite Leading Indicators.
Financial market researchers	Track inflation trends across multiple economies using harmonized Consumer Price Index data.
Supply chain strategists	Assess real economic activity in sourcing countries through monthly Industrial Production figures.
Data journalists	Build a time series of key economic metrics to support a story on global economic health.

What it does

This Actor collects OECD short-term economic statistics by dataset and country code, and returns each observation as a flat row.

• 🌐 Eight datasets: Composite Leading Indicators (CLI), Consumer Prices (CPI), Industrial Production (production, sales, work started and orders), Key Short-term Economic Indicators (KEI), Business Tendency Surveys, Consumer Opinion Surveys, Financial Market Indicators, and Monetary Aggregates.
• 🏳️ Country selection: Pull data for a single ISO3 country code, a comma-separated list, or set to "all" for every available country.
• 📅 Period range: Optional start and end period (2020, 2020-01 or 2020-Q1) to keep the run to the years you need. The most recent observations come first.
• 📊 Flat output: Each observation is one row with its country, subject, unit, frequency, seasonal adjustment, transformation, time period, value and observation status, both as OECD codes and as plain-English names, ready for pivot tables.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with OECD data

📈 Monitor business cycle turning points.

A macro analyst pulls the latest CLI data for the G7 countries each month to update a recession probability dashboard.

💰 Track inflation for investment decisions.

A fixed-income researcher scrapes monthly CPI for Brazil, India, and South Africa to gauge real yield opportunities.

🏭 Gauge real-time industrial activity.

A procurement manager collects Industrial Production data for Vietnam and Mexico to anticipate factory output and shipping demand.

📰 Build a global economic snapshot.

A data journalist runs the scraper for all countries on the CLI dataset to create a heatmap of economic momentum for an article.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Consistent schema	All eight datasets return the same flat structure, so you can append runs without reshaping.
No manual downloads	Skip the OECD Data Explorer interface and get raw data directly into your pipeline.
Full country coverage	One run with "all" countries gives you a global view for cross-country comparisons.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets OECD the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	OECD Short-term Economic Statistics Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When OECD changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor by selecting one of the eight OECD datasets and a country code, then set a maximum number of records to cap the run. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "dataset": "OECD.SDD.STES,DSD_STES@DF_CLI",
  "country": "USA",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Consumer prices for three economies since 2020:

{
  "dataset": "OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_PRICES@DF_PRICES_ALL",
  "country": "USA,DEU,JPN",
  "startPeriod": "2020-01",
  "maxItems": 5000
}

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the OECD Short-term Economic Statistics Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to OECD through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/oecd-data-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

I got zero results for my country code.

Verify you are using the correct ISO3 code, like "USA" not "US". Also, not all countries are available in every dataset. Try the "all" setting to see which countries return data.

The run stopped at 10 records but I need more.

The free tier is limited to a 10-record preview. Upgrade to a paid Apify plan and increase the "Maximum data records" field to pull your full dataset.

The data values look strange or are missing.

The OECD API sometimes returns nulls for missing periods. This is normal. Filter nulls in your analysis tool, or check the OECD data portal to confirm the series coverage for that country.

I don't know which dataset to choose.

CLI predicts economic turning points, CPI measures inflation, Industrial Production measures real output, and KEI bundles the headline indicators (production, retail trade, earnings, unemployment) in one dataset. Pick the one that matches your economic question.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What OECD datasets can I scrape?	Composite Leading Indicators (CLI), Consumer Prices (CPI), Industrial Production (production, sales, work started and orders), Key Short-term Economic Indicators (KEI), Business Tendency Surveys, Consumer Opinion Surveys, Financial Market Indicators, and Monetary Aggregates. Select one per run from the dataset dropdown.
How do I specify a country?	Use the three-letter ISO3 country code, like USA, DEU, or JPN. Separate several codes with commas, or enter "all" to fetch data for every country the OECD has in that dataset.
Is there a limit on how many records I can get?	Free Apify users are limited to 10 records as a preview. Paid users can set the maxItems field up to 1,000,000 records per run.
What format is the data returned in?	Each observation is a flat row with the dataset, country, subject, unit, frequency, adjustment, transformation, time period, value and observation status, as OECD codes plus plain-English names. You can export the full run to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Can I limit the run to recent years?	Yes. Set Start period and End period in the dataset's own format (2020, 2020-01 or 2020-Q1). Without them the full history is returned, most recent observations first.
Does this use the official OECD API?	Yes, it reads from the OECD SDMX API, which is the same public interface that powers their data portal. No API key is needed.
Can I get historical data or only the latest value?	The API returns the full time series available for your chosen dataset and country, so you get historical observations as well as the most recent one.
How often is the OECD data updated?	The Actor pulls live data from the OECD API on each run. The underlying data is updated by the OECD according to their publication schedule, typically monthly.
What is a Composite Leading Indicator?	The CLI is designed to signal turning points in the business cycle. It aggregates several component series to anticipate fluctuations in economic activity.
Can I schedule this scraper to run automatically?	Yes, Apify supports scheduled runs. You can set this Actor to run daily or monthly to keep your economic database current.

Related actors

• OECD SDMX Statistics Scraper for any OECD dataflow by ID and key filter.
• OECD.Stat Scraper for the legacy OECD.Stat datasets.
• DBnomics Economic Series Scraper for series from 80+ statistical providers in one place.

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by OECD. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.