Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies
To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade
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countries might be targeted in agricultural trade policy making to promote intra-OIC
agricultural trade. The policy review in all three dimensions, i.e., tariffs, NTMs, and trade
agreements, has also been focused on these products and countries that would play a significant
role through their agricultural trade potential. A subset of policy recommendations has been
developed according to the results of this specialized review.
1.3. Case Studies
As mentioned in the Introduction, six countries are selected as case study countries. Brazil and
Thailand are the selected non-OIC countries, and Turkey, Morocco, Gambia and Chad are the OIC
members.
Brazil and Thailand are two non-OIC countries from two different continents, and they stand out
as two of the best practice cases across the globe in the field of agricultural production and trade.
Turkey is chosen as a field visit country from the Asian group of OIC mainly because she is a
prominent export hub for agricultural products within the OIC (COMCEC, 2018b). Morocco,
chosen as the field visit country from the Arab group, has a share of agriculture in employment
that is larger than Turkey’s. The field visit country from the African group, i.e. Gambia, on the
other hand, is a much smaller country than Turkey and Morocco, and one rationale for choosing
Gambia is this country’s product dependence to “wood” and “fruits and nuts.” Finally, Chad is
the OIC member country chosen as the desk study case. One reason Chad stands out as a
potential case study country is that there is relatively more available data for Chad as the
country has been reviewed by the WTO secretariat in 2007 and 2013.
For these six countries, agricultural trade flows and agricultural trade policies have been
analyzed and reviewed in greater detail. Their close trade partners in agricultural products, both
their top export destinations and their top import origins within the OIC, have been identified.
Then, their top export products/product groups and top import products/product groups have
been determined as well.
The analysis of trade flow data is followed by the detailed analysis of agricultural trade policy
measures. The trade-weighted average applied tariffs have been computed for the top
products/product groups and top trade partners. NTMs have been analyzed by using the NTM
coverage ratio, NTM frequency ratio, and NTM affected product count in each country and for
each sector. Finally, the trade agreements in force have been documented, and the OIC members
that export to the case study country under preferential tariffs have been determined.
Three of the case study countries, i.e., Gambia, Morocco and Turkey, are the field visit countries
as well. These countries have been visited to conduct face-to-face interviews with different
stakeholders in agricultural trade and agricultural trade policy making. The main purpose of
these field visits has been to collect information that cannot be obtained through the analysis
and review of published statistics. For this purpose, a key informant interview in semi-
structured form has been designed. The interview has been conducted in all three countries in
several meetings with a number of key informants. The list of key informants includes, in each
country, the directors and experts from the ministries and government offices specializing in
agriculture and on trade. The list also includes private sector representatives, specialists or
managers working in the field of agricultural credits, and academics whose research focuses on
agriculture and agricultural trade.
The information collected through the face-to-face interviews in Gambia, Morocco, and Turkey
has been summarized under three subsections for each of these countries. The first of these
subsections is on agricultural trade policies, summarizing relevant institutions and policy