Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies

To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade

2.1.1. Sectoral breakdown of major trading blocs’ exports and imports

At this stage, a closer look at division level will help better understand the evolution of the global

agricultural trade. Here again the analysis will be based on the major trading blocs and the

change in the share of their top 5 export and import products in total exports and imports

respectively. At global level, the top three product categories in the agricultural trade are

vegetables-fruit, cereals and beverages-tobacco. Fish and Meat follow closely as the fourth and

fifth divisions (Figure 2. 5).

Figure 2. 5 Breakdown of Global Agricultural Trade by Product Divisions, 2016

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

calculations

In Figure 2.6, treemaps are used to compare the five trading blocs and the rest of the world with

regard to top 5 export and import agricultural products divisions. With the exception of oils, fats,

waxe as the top product division in their exports of both ASEAN and OIC, none of the other three

blocs have overlapping top first division, Among the top three divisions, vegetables and fruit is

the only common product division to all four blocs and OIC. NAFTA competes in oil seeds with

MERCOSUR. The fact that vegetables and fruit is among the top 5 import divisions of all those

trading blocs or group means there are complementarities due to different sorts of fruits and

vegetables differing according to geographic location e.g. tropical fruits. The aggregation at

trading bloc level is another reason for which those blocs seem to be exporters and importers of

the same agricultural products. For example, since OIC comprises Sudan, Turkey, Algeria and

Nigeria which are among the world top 10 lamb producers together with Pakistan and Turkey

among the top ten beef producers results in the OIC as a group being both exporter and importer

of meat, despite a concrete trade deficit in this category as a whole.