Analysis of Agri-Food Trade Structures
To Promote Agri-Food Trade Networks
In the Islamic Countries
48
The network for fish products (Figure 25) is more decentralized than the network for
agricultural raw materials, again likely reflecting the fact that fish products tend to be final
consumption goods rather than intermediate inputs. Trade is again strongly intra-regional, with
a predominance of largest intra-OIC trade flows being within the same regional group. The sub-
networks do not have an obvious interpretation in policy terms, as they tend to bring together
countries from different regional groups but not in a consistent way. The somewhat anomalous
nature of the fish products network was further investigated using more disaggregated data at
the COMCEC Group level. This research shows that there is very little trade in fresh fish among
OIC member countries, so the sector is dominated by trade in processed products. The fisheries
sector is unusual among agricultural products in that trade data ascribe an export location for
processed products based on the location of the processing plant, even if the fish were caught
elsewhere, or were caught by a vessel under a different country’s flag. As such, assigning origin
is more challenging in this sector than for the others considered, and this point may go some
way to explaining why there is no clear pattern in terms of intra-OIC trade using network
analysis
Figure 24: Graphical Representation of the Intra-OIC Trade Network in Agricultural Raw
Materials, Largest Flow Only, 2016.
Source: Authors´.