Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies
To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade
27
With regard to their imports, the situation is not different. Top 5 import products for NAFTA,
ASEAN and the World Total did not change during 2008-2016. For MERCOSUR, Meat imports
moved to the 10th place as it may be expected, the bloc comprising the world biggest beef
producers such as Brazil and Argentina. For OIC, the division which went down 3 ranks is dairy
products, leaving its place to beverages and tobacco (Table 2. 3).
Finally, Figure 2. 8 shows the evolution of the global exports value of the top 5 agricultural
products according to destinations and Figure 2. 9, for the imports according to origin. For the
top 5 export products, the EU-28, NAFTA and MERCOSUR lost share to the benefit of the Rest of
the World. Figure 2. 8 confirms that in the global agricultural export markets of the top 5
products, developing countries participate to the competition more than before.
Figure 2. 8 Global Exports of Top 5 Producs by Destinations, %, 2008-2016
Source: ITC Macmap, CEPII BACI, Eurostat RAMON, UN Comtrade, UN Trade Statistics, and authors’ calculations
Figure 2. 9 displays that the leading origin group for the imports of the top 5 products changed
during the period considered, with EU leaving its leading role to the Rest of the World. It is also
worthmentioning that theMERCOSUR group comprising big agricultural countries to beginwith
Brazil lost share as the top five import products’ origin. However, this is due to a successful
strategy, diversifying their external trade in agriculture which is worth taken as an example.
This explains the choice of Brazil as one of the case study countries in this report.
2.2. Global Agricultural Trade Policy Objectives
The global overarching agricultural policy objective should certainly be considered as the United
Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG): “End hunger, achieve food security and
improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.”
The framework provided by the Uruguay Agreement on Agriculture for trade policy objectives
is “to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system and that a reform process
should be initiated through the negotiation of commitments on support and protection and
through the establishment of strengthened and more operationally effective GATT rules and
disciplines.” (WTO, 2018b).
17 16 16 16 16 15 16 17 16
6.5 5.8 6.2 6.5 7.0 6.6 5.7 5.7 5.7
6.2 6.7 7.0 7.0 6.9 6.6 7.0 7.2 7.1
42.6 41.9 40.5 39.6 38.6 39.6 38.7 37.1 37.5
27.6 30.0 30.4 30.8 32.0 31.9 32.5 33.3 33.5
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
NAFTA MERCOSUR ASEAN EU-28 Others