Tag: competitiveness

Long since the end of the British India regime, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka have produced a significant volume of tea which continues to bring them invaluable foreign currency earnings through exports. Our paper explores the tea export competitiveness of these countries by employing the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) index, and analyses the nexus between tea export and economic growth over the period from 1980 to 2018 using several dynamic econometric approaches. Results suggest that Bangladesh has lost its tea export competitiveness over the last decade. India posted moderate performance, while Sri Lanka consistently kept its dominant position. Further, the Johansen Cointegration test outcomes report no long-run relationship between tea export and economic growth across all the countries. The Granger Causality outcomes illustrate that only in Sri Lanka is it the case that tea export causes short-run economic growth. Lastly, the impulse response function projects tea export and economic growth, taking into consideration the response of each to a shock from the other. Extrapolation from the results indicate that, in contrast to the cases of Bangladesh and India (where no direct relationship was found), tea export and economic growth are intimately interconnected in Sri Lanka. This article further recommends ...

Azerbaijan is a highly oil-dependent country that needs to find new avenues for increasing its international competitiveness. Therefore, this paper analyses the competitiveness of various fruit and vegetable products by calculating domestic resource cost ratios, using the data for 2015–16 as representing base years. Out of the 10 products analysed, almost all were found to have high competitive potential, especially on the Russian and European markets. In order to maintain competitiveness in the arable sector, however, Azerbaijan will need to achieve dynamic improvements in productivity and run a wise agricultural policy.

This study examines the impact of internal and external knowledge on firm productivity in the Swedish agricultural sector. It combines theories from regional economics about the geographical aspects of knowledge with traditional theories on the role of knowledge in productivity in agriculture. The study is a firm-level analysis using an unbalanced panel between the years 2002 and 2011 in Sweden. The results show that these firms are positively affected by employees with formal education related to the sector. Higher knowledge levels have a greater impact than lower levels. External knowledge, such as localised spillovers, is also important, but the results on this factor are more ambiguous.

Our study determines the competitive positions of the dairy sectors of Hungary and the other European Union (EU) Member States in the light of the abolition of the milk quota. We analyse the recent market positions of the EU Member States, the changes in the relationships between global, EU and Hungarian milk procurement prices, and the medium-term forecasts for the international markets for milk and milk products, including the results of our own model. In most Member States, milk production is below the quota level, although the most competitive countries are paying substantial penalties for excess production. The medium-term projections and the price relationships underline the fact that, due to the liberalisation of the milk market and the rapid rise in global demand, the impacts of global market developments in the EU will be further enhanced. Owing to sustained international demand, the EU’s export opportunities will improve, reducing the pressure on the internal market, and this will have a spill over effect on Hungarian milk prices. Although in terms of trade balance and quota utilisation Hungary is one of the least competitive Member States, the concentration, modernisation and selection processes that have taken place in the country’s dairy sector in ...

In 2004 and 2007 twelve countries joined the European Union (EU), bringing about significant changes in the field of European agriculture. One of the major changes was the transformation of the agri-food trade of these countries. This paper analyses the effects of EU enlargement on the competitiveness of fruit spirits in six Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), especially regarding geographical indications, by using the theory of revealed comparative advantages. Although the majority of the studied CEEC fruit spirits was both competitive and had a comparative advantage in the EU-15 beverages market in the period 2001-2011, during this time the competitiveness in terms of quality and price of fruit spirits in the region declined. The results indicate that these countries are losing their market positions in their traditional fruit spirit sector in the EU-15 beverages market in spite of the fact that the majority of these products have a geographical indication. These changes are in line with the overall trend of an increasing trade deficit in the overall beverages, spirits and vinegar market of the six CEECs with the EU-15 after 2003. By contrast, the well-known grappa of Italy is shown to be competitive in terms of both price and ...