Analysis of Agri-Food Trade Structures
To Promote Agri-Food Trade Networks
In the Islamic Countries
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3. ANALYSIS OF THE AGRICULTURAL TRADE PERFORMANCE OF OIC
MEMBER COUNTRIES
This section moves from a consideration of global trends in agricultural trade to the
performance of OIC member countries. For exports and imports separately, the ten leading
products are identified for each OIC regional group based on the average of the threemost recent
years of data. Table 5 presents consolidated results. Given overlap in some cases between the
leading products of different regions, this process identifies 18 product groups. The fact that this
number is substantially less than the thirty groups that would be indicated by completely
independent product baskets across OIC regions indicates that there is in fact some degree of
commonality across regions in terms of the most important products. In addition, a comparison
of exports and imports shows that there is also considerable overlap between the most
important export products and the most important import products.
Table 5: Leading Traded Products, OIC
Product
Live animals other than animals of division 03
Fish and crustaceans, chilled or frozen
Cocoa and chocolate
Tobacco
Oil seeds
Crude rubber
Cork and wood
Cotton
Rice
Palm oil
Bread products
Vegetables
Fruit and nuts
Coffee
Other edible products
Rest of 06 (sugars, sugar preparations, and honey)
Rest of 4 (animal and vegetable oils, fats, and waxes)
Source: Authors’ calculations based on UN Comtrade Data.
3.1. Composition and Patterns of Agricultural Trade
This subsection considers exports and imports separately, and looks at the product composition
of trade flows, as well as their direction between OIC regional groups. In all cases, product
groups are as defined in Table 5. The Annex 1 classification identifies 55 different product
groups at its most disaggregated level. Although sectors can be important components of
exports at the aggregate level, the same is not typically true of highly disaggregated products.
To put this point in perspective, the analysis therefore shows the percentage of each group’s
total exports accounted for by the products listed in Annex 1. In all cases, there is a comparison
of 2005 and 2016 to show the evolution of these product shares over time.