Agri-Food Export Competitiveness of the ASEAN Countries

Abstract

Agri-food trade competitiveness analyses are relatively understudied in the empirical literature with many countries/regions missing. The novelty of this paper to analyze the agri-food export competitiveness patterns of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), thereby aiming to fill this gap in the literature. Our research questions include which countries and products are competitive in the ASEAN region in agri-food trade; whether raw materials or processed products are more competitive; whether regional or global agri-food trade is more competitive and how persistent competitiveness is in the long run. The paper is based on ASEAN–ASEAN and ASEAN–world agri-food trade flows from 2010 to 2018, thereby global and regional competitiveness patterns have become visible. Results suggest that Myanmar (18.88), Laos (8.21) and the Philippines (5.36) have the highest levels of agri-food trade competitiveness in the world market, while in regional markets, Laos (17.17), Cambodia (15.46) and Myanmar (12.39) were the most competitive. Both raw materials, as well as processed products, are generally competitive, and regional trade, in general, was more competitive than global trade for the majority of the countries. However, results suggest a generally decreasing trend in keeping these competitive positions, which is also supported by the duration tests. Survival chances of 98% at the beginning of the period fell to 0–25% by the end of the period, significant at all levels, suggesting that a generally fierce competition exists for ASEAN countries in global as well as regional agri-food trade.

Deliver Smart, Not More! Building Economically Sustainable Competitiveness on the Ground of High Agri-Food Trade Specialization in the EU

“…To support this approach, the literature consists of similar papers dedicated to the study of relative trade advantages (as a form of economic competitiveness) for bulk primary raw agricultural commodities, such as cereals, in comparison with consumer-ready foods, such as the preparations of cereals. [106][107][108][109][110][111][112]. Up to a certain level, this study is similar to those dedicated to intra-industry competitiveness type of analyses [113][114][115], but particularly niched on the cereals sector.…”

Competitiveness and Flow of Indonesian Paper Trade in The Global Market

“…The RCA index is an important metric for evaluating a country's competitiveness in exporting certain commodities (Liu & Gao, 2022). This method has been widely used by various researchers to measure the level of country's commodity competitiveness such as Erokhin et al (2020), Kuzmenko et al (2022), Matkovski et al (2022), Mizik et al (2020), Vu et al (2019), Wardani et al (2018), and Yemima & Novianti (2020). RCA calculates competitiveness by comparing the share of exports of a commodity in the country's total exports with the share of the same commodity exports in total world exports (Kim, 2019).…”

Agri-Food Trade Competitiveness: A Review of the Literature

“…Other parts of the world were also analyzed with similar methodological tools. The case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries showed that productivity is only one potential source of competitiveness, but not an exclusive one [4]. A lack of adequate processing capacities seems to be a common barrier to higher competitiveness, as not only the ASEAN but also the CIS suffer from this [4,13].…”

“…The case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries showed that productivity is only one potential source of competitiveness, but not an exclusive one [4]. A lack of adequate processing capacities seems to be a common barrier to higher competitiveness, as not only the ASEAN but also the CIS suffer from this [4,13]. However, these country groups show a common characteristic: significant agri-food producers have higher comparative advantages and a better trade performance [13,50].…”

“…According to them, both theories involved the same steps, extension, and debate, which finally led to the national competitiveness report as a measurement of competitiveness. From this aspect, the Balassa index helps to combine international trade theories with competitiveness by using trade data for calculating revealed comparative advantages [4]. This index compares the national export share of a given product to the international export share of the same product in the reference group.…”