Analysis of competitiveness of the external trade with agri-food products of the Republic of Moldova

Abstract

The paper aims to analyse the current status of competitiveness of agri-food products of Moldovan origin in terms of foreign trade. Republic of Moldova has had a positive trade balance for agri-food products in the last 10 years, the main economic partners being countries from EU, CIS and some from the other states. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly important to assess which Moldovan agri-food products have a potential competitive degree on external markets, thus making the necessary sectoral recommendations. For the analysis of competitiveness of external trade with agri-food products, the following methodological indexes have been used: Revealed Comparative Advantage, Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage, Open Trade Index, Trade Specialization Index and Grubel-Lloyd index. Based on the analysis, agri-food commodities with a significant competitive advantage have been identified, like oil seeds, edible fruits and nuts, beverages and spirits, cereals and preparations of vegetables and fruits, thus indicating on the competitive potential in foreign trade.