7 Conclusions
The objective of the paper was to shed some more light on the question how developing
countries perform in a trading environment which is determined by the increasing
importance of food safety and quality standards. The first part of the paper described
the increasing importance of public standards within the trading system. The paper tried
to turn away from the traditional assumption of higher SPS notifications implying higher
barriers of trade. As a consequence it had a closer look on border rejections and on the
investments of the STDF to reflect countries' ability to cope with the international food
safety requirements. The second part of the paper analyzed the export performance of
73 developing countries and grouped them accordingly to their export performance.
Finally, US and EU border rejections and STDF investments were related to the results of
the cluster analysis to gain an idea about the relevance of standards for the market
share development of particular countries.
Overall it can be stated that the simple generalization of developing countries being a
group of losers in these new developments is false. The closer look of the analysis of the
paper explored that developing countries are a very heterogeneous group which shows
various different tendencies of market share development. In addition, the analysis
showed that it is not appropriate to title small exporters categorically as losers and large
exporters as general winners. Especially in the fruit/ vegetable sector various small and
very small exporting countries managed to increase their market share. The sector
seems to imply the potential to participate in the positive market development for small
and large exporters alike. Nevertheless, it can be generalized, that most of the large
developing countries exporters extended their market shares, sometimes even
tremendously. A slightly different picture was found on the meat market. The five large
exporters extensively increased their market shares while many small and medium
exporting countries lost. However, two clusters of small and medium winner were found
as well.
The analysis of border rejections from the US and the EU which were related to the
results of the cluster analysis of the fruit/ vegetable market in section 6 showed
somehow diverse picture. Large exporting countries tend to show much higher border
rejections than small exporting countries. The analysis takes only border rejections of
developing countries into consideration. However, the highest rate of border rejections
appears between OECD countries. This might on the one hand not be astonishing
because of the larger trade volumes, nevertheless, it also points to persisting failure to
cope with international food safety requirements even of those countries which have a
long exporting tradition. Nevertheless, the structure within clusters is heterogeneous.
Higher average rejections of particular cluster groups are often determined by few
countries with high rejections.
The STDF investment show similar findings as investment structures within cluster
groups differs tremendously. Total investment of the STDF in individual countries is
enormous high, while other countries in the same cluster show low or non investment.
Both, border rejections as well as STDF investments did not reflect a particular structure
related to market share development of individual countries. However, this could change
in further research on single product level with better data availability.
Remains the question what makes a country being a winner or a loser? Which specific
characteristics does a country have to fulfill to extend its market shares when value
chains are increasingly integrated, spot markets lose relevance and specific food safety
and quality requirements of the different trading partners are the major determinants in
selling products? This question is particularly interesting for small exporting countries
which managed to extend their market shares. This very interesting part of the analysis
should be subject to further research. It would be interesting to analyze the importance
of FDIs for a better capability to satisfy the new market requirements. Furthermore,
single country survey would be interesting to understand the differences as well as the
favoring or impeding factors of the compliance strategies of winners and losers.
8 References
1. Aloui, O., Kenny, L. (2005), "The Cost of Compliance with SPS Standards for Moroccan
Exports: A Case Study", Agriculture and Rural Development Discussion Paper, The
World Bank/ ARD.
2. Backhaus (***), "
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