Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies

To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade

With regards to the Arab group exports, its top 5 exported agricultural products to the OIC group

largely go to the Arab group countries (Figure 3.10). The share of the Arab group countries in

Arab group’s exports is 39.5% in 2008 and 47.3% in 2016. The shares of the Asian and African

countries in the Arab group’s exports are 6.2%and 2.5%, respectively. Similar to the African and

the Asian groups, there is a downward trend in the share of the non-OIC group exports (see

Table F.9 in Annex F). The imports of the Arab group countries’ agricultural products are coming

mainly from the Arab group as well (Figure 3.11). The share of the Arab group in the top 5 import

products is 12.9% in 2008 and 16.9% in 2016, reflecting an upward trend. The share of the Asian

group is 9.2%while the share of the African group is only 0.1%. In Arab group exports, the share

of non-OIC countries has been falling over the last decade, analogous with the other OIC groups

(see Table F.10 in Annex F).

Figure 3. 10 Destination of Top 5 Export Products of Arab Group

Source: ITC Macmap, CEPII BACI, Eurostat RAMON, UN Comtrade, UN Trade Statistics, and authors’

calculations. Note: Top 5 products are identified considering 3 year average between 2014 and 2016.

One noteworthy aspect of the main patterns pictured in Figures 3.6 to 3.11 is the following.

While the share of non-OIC countries in the top 5 exported and imported products remain rather

high in 2016 (ranging from around 44% to 88%), the non-OIC share for all three groups and for

both exports and imports exhibited absolute decreases from2008 to 2016. In other words, there

exists a slow but persistent increase in intra-OIC agricultural trade in the top 5 export and

import product divisions.

10%

30%

100%

20%

15%

25%

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Non-OIC countries

African group

Asian group

Arab group