TRADE REFORM AND THE PROSPECTS FOR PROCESSED FOOD EXPORTS FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper draws attention to the relative neglect of the consequences of barriers to processed food exports from developing countries in the literature examining the effects on these countries of agricultural trade liberalisation. These barriers are of three kinds: trade policy barriers; differing health, food safety and environmental standards; and, barriers arising from the evolving market structure in food processing and distribution in developed country markets. The paper discusses the likely significance of the gains to developing countries from reduction of tariffs on processed food commodities and examines the consequences of the EU single market programme for developing country food exports.     

Trade and agroindustrialization in developing countries: trends and policy impacts

There have been important changes in the international trade of processed and high-value added food products from developing countries over the past several decades. One of them has been the emergence of oilseeds and fruits and vegetables, replacing traditional products such as sugar, coffee, and cocoa as the main exports from developing countries. Another trend has been the collapse of African agroindustrial exports and the increase of exports from Asia. The paper highlights key trends, and explores possible reasons for the trends, focusing on trade policies in less-developed countries (LDCs) and developed countries (DCs). The paper argues that national trade policies and other economic policies appear to have been relatively supportive of agroindustrial production and exports in Asia. In contrast, policies have had more mixed effects in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and seem to have been just one component in a larger array of forces inhibiting economic development in Africa. The performance of agroindustrial production and exports from LDCs may be now more dependent than ever on the completion of reforms in the agricultural trade policies of DCs. For Africa, however, a more supportive international environment and better macroeconomic and trade policies will not be enough to ensure a thriving agroindustrial sector within a broader process of economic development until military confrontations stop.     

THE FUTURE OF EEC DAIRY EXPORTS TO THE LESS-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS OF LONG-RANGE PROJECTIONS AND MODEL STUDIES

From recent projection studies it can be concluded that future dairy exports by the EEC to the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) will increase. The self-sufficiency ratio for dairy products in the EEC will increase because of strong, technologically induced, growth of production potential. On the one hand, surplus production in the EEC will be difficult to curtail as the unfavourable conditions of the general economy will impede outmigration of inputs. Import demand, on the other hand, is projected to increase as many populations will be moving into stages of higher growth of income. Thus, input restrictions of agriculture in industrialised countries may be unnecessary. In this paper some agricultural economic aspects of the implied trade relationships are discussed. It is concluded that LDCs are not likely to benefit from gains of trade as predicted by theory of free trade and international specialisation. From projections by model studies, however, no consensus emerged. Projection and model studies seem hardly suited to provide insight in the effects of international trade under conditions of imperfect competition.     

我国特色果蔬国际贸易中存在的技术壁垒问题探析

我国是农业大国,农产品的国际贸易对我国经济发展具有较大的影响。随着我国农产品贸易出口量的增加,国外许多国家,尤其是发达国家开始制定许多措施来限制我国农产品的出口,其中技术壁垒对我国农产品出口产生很大的阻碍。为了更好地促进农产品贸易发展,我国逐渐将特色果蔬作为农产品贸易的主要竞争力,特色果蔬不仅具有较高的经济效益,其区域特色、品质特色及丰富的营养结构等优势更是顺应了消费者对农产品质量要求越来越高的新变化。文章通过阐述特色农产品与技术壁垒等的相关概念,进而分析我国特色果蔬国际贸易发展存在的相关问题,从不利与有利因素来研究技术壁垒对我国特色果蔬国际贸易带来的影响,以此为我国特色果蔬贸易的发展提出以下几点政策建议:(1)提高特色果蔬产品质量安全水平;(2)完善特色果蔬质量标准体系建设;(3)实现特色果蔬集约化生产与运输。     

How can trade partners be chosen when facing food scandals? China's milk scandal as a natural experiment

Using China's milk scandal as a natural experiment, this paper explores whether the countries of origin and export destinations have the same responses to the original country's food scandal. Our difference-in-difference estimation shows that the outbreak of China's milk scandal had asymmetric impacts on China's total imports (increased by 23.4%) and exports (sharply dropped by 65.8%). The results further show that China's milk scandal contributed to import increases from European and Oceanian countries. Moreover, China's milk scandal worsened exports, mainly those going to neighbouring Asian regions but increased exports to Oceania. A product quality index is constructed to explain this finding. Intuitively, consumers' perceived quality of Chinese products declined, and they tended to consume products from other countries. The lower the product quality was with those in China, the lower the perceived quality and safety, thereby affecting demand. During the scandal, Chinese consumers tended to buy high-quality dairy products from Europe and Oceania rather than the perceived unreliable dairy products produced by China or neighbouring countries. We conclude that product quality plays a key role in imports and exports when facing food scandals.     

Agricultural price distortions: trends and volatility,past, and prospective

Historically, earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by a pro‐urban bias in own‐country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduced global economic welfare and agricultural trade, and added to global inequality and poverty. Over the past three decades, much progress has been made in reducing agricultural protection in high‐income countries and agricultural disincentives in developing countries. However, plenty of price distortions remain. As well, the propensity of governments to insulate their domestic food market from fluctuations in international prices has not waned. Such insulation contributes to the amplification of international food price fluctuations, yet it does little to advance national food security when food‐importing and food‐exporting countries equally engage in insulating behavior. Thus there is still much scope to improve global economic welfare via multilateral agreement not only to remove remaining trade distortions but also to desist from varying trade barriers when international food prices gyrate. This article summarizes indicators of trends and fluctuations in farm trade barriers before examining unilateral or multilateral trade arrangements, together with complementary domestic measures, that could lead to better global food security outcomes.     

Structural transformation away from agriculture in growing open economies

Understanding how and why economies structurally transform away from agriculture as they grow is crucial for developing sensible growth strategies and farm and food policies. Typically, analysts who study this and related structural change issues focus on sectoral shares of gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. This article draws on trade theory to focus as well on exports. It also notes that the trade costs of some products are too high at early stages of development to make international trade profitable, so a nontradables sector is recognized. The general equilibrium model presented in the theory section provides hypotheses about structural transformation in differently endowed open economies as they grow. Those hypotheses are tested econometrically with a new annual endowments dataset covering 1995–2018 for more than 130 countries. The results are consistent with long run de-agriculturalization in the course of national economic growth in terms not only of sectoral shares of GDP and employment but also of exports. We find those shares are not significantly affected by either differences across countries in relative factor endowments or relative rates of sectoral assistance from government; but the agricultural GDP and employment shares are higher the higher is the share of agriculture in national exports.     

中美贸易摩擦对中美农产品贸易结构的影响研究

中美农产品贸易一直是双方经贸关系中的重要组成部分.自2018年4月中美贸易摩擦发生以来,中美双方公布的贸易清单几乎涵盖两国双边贸易所有产品,这一决策可能会使中国农业产业和粮食安全面临严峻考验.本文获取了中美分三次发布的加征关税产品清单,对加征关税产品占中美农产品贸易的份额进行核算,并使用贸易强度指数、基尼-赫希曼指数,...     

Food Label Regulations in the United States and European Community:

Growing interdependence among the world's food markets presents increased trade and investment opportunities for food firms. Although international trade agreements have recently been negotiated which will likely lead to increased food trade, especially among Western nations, revised product standards and technical regulations used in the course of implementing these agreements have potential to create trade barriers that are less obvious. This paper assesses recent developments in food quality and labeling regulations in the European Community (EC) and United States. The regulatory changes taking place in these large trading partners have the potential to result in trade barriers based on meeting technical standards, especially since the reforms are being pursued independently in each country.     

Food price increases and net food importing countries: lessons from the recent past

Recent increases in food and other commodity prices have highlighted concerns that many poor countries are net food importers and higher food prices would worsen their trade balances. In this article, we analyze the changes in food trade balances associated with the 32% increase in food prices from 2000/2001 to 2004/2005. We find a small deterioration in food trade balances of low‐income countries and an improvement in middle‐income countries. The deterioration is most severe for countries in conflict and small island states, so attention should be placed first on these countries and on a few very‐low‐income countries that are also vulnerable. Because low‐income countries as a group had much lower agricultural GDP growth rates than middle‐income countries, the answers to food vulnerability in low‐income countries should probably be addressed within the context of incentives for agricultural production.     

The Role of Income in Trading-Differentiated Agri-Food Products: The Case of Canada, the United States, and Selected EU Countries

This study investigates the role of income in determining the agri‐food exports of a subset of EU countries, Canada, and the United States by estimating per capita bilateral trade flows for 42 individual products categorized into nine product sectors across 52 countries for the period 1990–2000. About 43% of the total observations of bilateral trade flows for the selected regions and products are zero. Therefore, the fixed‐effects Heckman Maximum Likelihood estimation procedure is used to account for the zero observations. The results show that, in general, the three regions (Canada, the EU countries, United States) face statistically significant and positive income elasticities from developing countries. However, only Canadian and United States’ exports of agri‐food products benefit from elastic income elasticities. Middle‐income developing countries are the growth market of the future as growth in their expenditures on agri‐food imports outpaces the growth in their per capita incomes. Homotheticity is consistently rejected for Canada and the EU and less often for the United States. Thus, income plays an important role in agri‐food trade; however, further investigation is needed to better understand the forces that generate rather widely divergent results across countries and products. Dans la présente étude, nous avons examiné le rôle du revenu sur les exportations agroalimentaires de certains pays de l’Union européenne (UE), du Canada et des États‐Unis en estimant les échanges commerciaux bilatéraux par habitant de 42 produits issus de neuf secteurs de production dans 52 pays, pour la période allant de 1990 à 2000. Environ 43 p. 100 des observations d’échanges commerciaux bilatéraux pour les pays et les produits choisis étaient égales à zéro. Nous avons utilisé la méthode d’estimation du maximum de vraisemblance d’Heckman pour tenir compte des échanges nuls. Les résultats ont montré que, en règle générale, les trois zones (Canada, pays de l’UE et États‐Unis) sont confrontées aux élasticités?revenu positives et statistiquement significatives des pays en développement. Toutefois, seules les exportations canadiennes et étatsuniennes de produits agroalimentaires bénéficient d’une élasticité‐revenu élevée. Les pays en développement à revenu intermédiaire sont les marchés en expansion de l’avenir puisque la croissance de leurs importations agroalimentaires dépasse la croissance de leur revenu par habitant. L’homothéticité est systématiquement rejetée dans le cas du Canada et l’UE, et l’est moins souvent dans le cas des États‐Unis. Le revenu joue un rôle important dans le commerce agroalimentaire; toutefois, il faudrait effectuer des recherches supplémentaires afin de mieux comprendre les forces qui génèrent des résultats fort divergents entre les pays et les produits.     

Harmonization of food trade standards and regulations in ASEAN: the case of Malaysia's food imports

Regulatory heterogeneity continues to be identified as a challenge for food trade in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as the progress of harmonization of food standards among member states remains slow. Using a new and comprehensive database on nontariff measures (NTMs), this article examines the coverage, frequency, and diversity of NTMs for the food sector in Malaysia, and then estimates their impact on food imports from ASEAN. The food sector in Malaysia is found to be highly regulated, dominated by technical measures, namely, labeling for sanitary and phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade reasons, product quality, and restricted substances. The empirical results subsequently verify that, overall, technical measures are import restrictive. This article therefore contends that harmonization of food standards and regulations at the regional level is important for enhancing trade. However, building common ground for food safety regulations should be NTM‐ and sector‐specific, to realize progress in terms of regulatory convergence. This is particularly true for the food sector, since complete harmonization is not practical and not politically feasible.     

Exports and governance: the role of private voluntary agrifood standards

The empirical evidence that institutional differences across countries affect bilateral trade is robust. The crucial question remains how countries can enhance trade amid these differences. In this article, we measure the degree to which governance and institutions differ between countries as “governance distance.” Using a sample of EU/EFTA imports, we examine how adopting private agrifood safety standards modify the effect of governance distance on exports of fruits and vegetables, in particular apples, bananas, and grapes, within a structural gravity framework. Our results show that while increasing governance distance hinders bilateral trade, the interaction of standards and the governance distance is positively associated with exports, hence partially offsetting the direct trade‐inhibiting effects of the latter. GlobalGAP certified countries see the trade‐inhibiting effects of governance distance on their exports reduced by about 50%, ceteris paribus.     

中国畜产品出口贸易效率及潜力研究——以“丝绸之路经济带”沿线国家为例

目的 文章分析了中国对“丝绸之路经济带”沿线国家畜产品出口贸易效率及贸易潜力，以挖掘贸易潜力，推进双边畜产品贸易发展和畜牧产业合作。方法 运用2001—2020年面板数据构建随机前沿引力模型，测度中国对沿线国家畜产品贸易效率及潜力，并对经济规模、对外投资、地理位置等影响因素进行实证分析。结果 中国与沿线国家的经济发展水平、中国对外投资、是否加入WTO都对中国畜产品出口沿线国家有显著正向促进作用，而沿线国家的政治稳定程度和畜牧业发展水平则对中国畜产品出口该地区有抑制作用。结论 中国对沿线国家畜产品出口的贸易效率极不平衡，对亚欧经济带国家的出口效率远高于中亚及环中亚经济带；畜产品出口贸易潜力从高到依次为环中亚经济带、中亚经济带和亚欧经济带，其中，对亚美尼亚、哈萨克斯坦、阿富汗和伊朗等中西亚国家的畜产品市场潜力极大。我国应积极推进经济走廊的建设，完善自身贸易环境，以在“一带一路”倡议下提高中国畜产品出口贸易效率，释放贸易潜力，推动双边贸易的有效发展。     

Quality Upgrades of EU Agri‐Food Exports

We investigate determinants of quality upgrades in EU agri‐food exports using panel data models for the period 2000–2011. By employing highly disaggregated data we show that the unit value of exports is positively correlated to level of economic development and size of population. Our results highlight the negative impacts of comparative advantage and trade costs on upgrades in export quality. Our analysis partly confirms the role of income distribution in quality specialisation, that greater income inequality increases specialisation in quality upgrades. Findings are robust when applied to alternative subsamples, including vertically specialised and final agri‐food products.     

Trade Elasticity,Gravity and Trade Liberalisation: Evidence from the Food Industry

We present an econometric investigation of the trade effect produced by the elimination of tariffs in 18 food sectors for a large sample of developing and developed countries. The standard CES monopolistic competition trade model and the gravity equation were used to estimate trade substitution elasticities, exploring their sensitivity to different estimation methods. Using these elasticities, we simulate the trade effect of the elimination of tariffs, dealing with the problem of uncertainty in the estimated values. Results point to a significant variation in the elasticities estimated by different econometric methods, suggesting that the Poisson pseudo‐maximum‐likelihood estimator significantly inflates their magnitude. Simulation results indicate that trade liberalisation will strongly increase food exports especially from high income and emerging countries, leading to a general loss of market share by developing countries. The simulated trade flows obtained from the econometric approach are quite close to current evidence based on computable general equilibrium models.     

The Influence of Consumer Characteristics and Attitudes on the Demand for Organic Olive Oil

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to examine consumer factors that affect the demand of organic olive oil (socioeconomic characteristics as well as attitudes towards organic products, food safety and the environment). Heckman approach for single equation procedure was applied in order to (1) identify the profile of regular buyers of organic olive oil based on the aforementioned factors and (2) to estimate income elasticity for the same product. Results indicate that the demand for or ganic olive oil is strongly affected by socioeconomic characteristics such as income size and occupation status, and to a lesser extent by attitudes towards organic products, food safety and the environment.     

The effects of China's growth on the food prices and the food exports of other developing countries

This article explores the impacts of China's growth in the international markets of agricultural products along two dimensions: food price inflation and export growth in other developing countries. China's food imports of vegetable oils have grown dramatically over the last decade, linking China's economic growth to the recent increases in global food prices. If China is a source of global food price inflation, exporting countries will benefit whether they sell directly to China or not. These direct and indirect linkages are explored using a short‐run, partial‐equilibrium model of international trade in agricultural products in which consumer prices and trade costs are derived from bilateral trade flows. China's effects on food prices and exports are estimated by reducing Chinese food expenditures in 2007 by half, roughly China's level of expenditures in 1995. Results indicate that food prices as measured by CES price indexes in developing Asia, Africa, and Latin America would have been reduced by 1.27%, 0.32%, and 0.22%, respectively. China has been an important source of growth for exporters selling directly to China. There is no evidence of export growth due to an overall increase in food prices caused by China's growth.     

An econometric analysis of rice consumption in the People's Republic of China

Rice is the most important staple food in the People's Republic of China (PRO. In many Asian countries rice appears to have become an inferior good, with income increases leading to declines in per capita consumption as other food products are substituted for rice. In this study, human rice consumption is analyzed with a model that allows income elasticities to vary with income levels. An additional equation accounting for rice disappearance as seed, livestock feed, industrial uses and exports is also estimated. The results of the analysis indicate that rice has become an inferior good in China and per capita consumption is likely to decline in the future. Population growth and the growing use of rice for other purposes means that total rice disappearance will continue to increase although at a rate that is slower than has historically been the case. The predicted changes in rice consumption will create pressures to adjust production and trade patterns for rice as well as other agricultural products.     

无公害果蔬农产品生产质量安全控制思考

随着绿色生态环保理念的深入人心,无公害果蔬农产品成为人们消费选择的焦点。世界各国陆续推出严苛的生产检验标准,一些国家甚至将对农产品质量的控制措施演变为贸易战中的绿色壁垒,我国作为农产品输出大国,自由贸易的利益受到损害。在此背景下,本文从前置要求、物质基础、核心步骤和后盾保障4个角度切入,深入分析无公害果蔬农产品生产质量安全控制的有关技术规范,以为无公害果蔬农产品生产提供参考。