The International Competitiveness of the Palestinian Agriculture

The purpose of this study is to identify and measure the impacts of factors which are expected to influence the competitiveness of the Palestinian agriculture by using the market share approach with an econometric model. Over the past three decades, Palestinian agriculture has been subjected to increased international and regional competition. The impact of this competition is in part evidenced by trend decline in the West Bank and Gaza Strip agricultural exports in one hand, and the increases in agricultural imports on the other. The empirical results indicate that the performances of domestic and import market shares could be increased through improving the productivities of the major production factors such as land, labor and capital. Applying this policy would enhance the competitiveness of Palestinian agriculture by increasing local production to replace farm imports from Israel. On the other land, future farm export competitiveness will be closely linked to improvements in production, marketing efficiency and removing non-tarrif trade barriers (NTBs) imposed by Jordan and Israel.