Does Agricultural Trade Competitiveness Matter? The Case of the CIS Countries

Abstract

The paper aims to analyse the comparative advantage patterns of agriculture in the Commonwealth of Independent States. It is relatively understudied in the literature, especially in Central Asia. Agriculture still plays an important role in the region but in a different way than before. Despite that, the majority of the CIS countries are net food importers. Based on the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index, country-level analysis shows that Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia have the highest Balassa indices in the region, and Belarus, Ukraine and Azerbaijan are also having some comparative advantage. Product level analysis pointed out that the region's major agricultural export products groups are cereals. It is important to emphasise that the top five product groups have high, between 3.0-4.4, RCA values. It implies that the regional trade structure is consistent with comparative advantages. However, stability and duration tests show that these are not persistent, since survival chances fell appreciably from

Agri-Food Export Competitiveness of the ASEAN Countries

“…There is no clear sign that either raw materials or processed products would drive comparative advantages. These mixed results are in line with some previous literature ( [12,13]), though they contradict others on clear signs of processed products having higher comparative advantages ( [15,16]). Detailed, country and product group level results can be found in Appendix C. The complexity of intra-ASEAN trade becomes evident from the arguments above.…”

“…On the one hand, based on most of the literature ( [12][13][14]), it is observable that countries with the highest levels of agricultural potential and productivity excelled in regional trade. On the other hand, a variety of products gave the basis of comparative advantages in regional agri-food trade, somehow contradicting the literature on raw materials-processed agri-food products discussed above ( [15,16]). Moreover, it can be concluded that comparative advantages are higher in the case of intra-ASEAN agri-food trade than global trade, supporting the majority of the empirical literature ( [12,16,18]).…”

“…Second, according to many studies, processed agri-food products have higher comparative advantages than agri-food raw materials. Many studies have highlighted that processed products are more competitive than raw materials, implying that more value added results in higher comparative advantages ( [12,15,16]). Third, recent literature argues that revealed comparative advantages are higher for regional trade and lower for global trade, emphasizing the increased role of regional trade agreements, also supported by gravity analysis.…”

“…This is a clear sign of an efficient processing sector. This may lead Singapore to have higher comparative advantages in agri-food processed products trade both globally and regionally based on the associated literature ( [15,16]). As to regional agri-food exports, continuous growth can be seen in almost every country, though to a different extent (Table 4).…”

Agri-Food Trade Competitiveness: A Review of the Literature

“…competitive countries are generally productive ones as well, implying that these terms are positively related [10][11][12]; • products with higher value added (e.g., semi-processed or process goods) are generally more competitive and have higher revealed comparative advantages [10,13,14]; • the more export-oriented a country is, the more likely it is to preserve its competitive position [15][16][17].…”