Non-tariff measures such as food safety standards are aimed at protecting consumers' health but may also be used as protectionism tool to limit imports. This study investigates the protectionist intent of EU food safety standards using a sample of EU food imports from African countries. We formalized protectionism by comparing EU standards to the internationally scientific benchmarks. Our results support the hypothesis that heavily import dependent sectors are less protected. Further analysis shows no substantial rise in the usage of these measures as protectionism tool during the period of financial crisis. Keywords:Trade protectionism, Non-tariff measures, food safety standards, food exports, European Union JEL Classifications: F13 F14 L15 P16 Q17 Q18 2

This paper examines the impact of two European Union (EU) market access regulations in the food sector presumed to simultaneously affect firms’ decisions to export food products to the EU. We analysed EU pesticide standards on African exports alongside a complementary non‐tariff measure in the form of a minimum entry price regulation, which aims to protect EU growers of certain fruits and vegetables against international competition. Analysis was based on Africa's exports of tomatoes, oranges, and lime and lemon to the EU between 2008 and 2013, using the gravity model of trade. Our results show that EU market access conditions constitute significant barrier to the formation of new trade relation between the EU and Africa. In addition, initiation of trade relationships is contingent not only on market access conditions but also on domestic market constraints in Africa. These results imply that negotiating preferential entry prices duties and the removal of domestic market restraints as well as strengthening domestic capacity to comply with EU standards to enhance continuous market access for the continent could stimulate food trade along the extensive margin.

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Over the years, there have been a significant number of Africa’s food exports rejected at the European Union (EU) borders due to their non-compliance with EU food safety standards. This paper, therefore, provides an in-depth investigation of the potential causes of the non-compliance of Africa’s food exports to EU food standards and the subsequent rejection of such food exports at its borders. We contribute to the literature by investigating the roles played by trade facilitation measures and institutions in food export rejections and also exclusively provide a more detailed analysis and specific evidence at the product level. Our results indicate that poor trade facilitation measures, particularly inefficient border and food logistics procedures in African countries, increase the incidence of food rejection at the EU border and add to Africa’s challenges in accessing EU markets. Thus, non-compliance with EU food safety standards can be addressed by African governments through the strengthening of their domestic institutions and trade facilitation measures, with policies that improve logistics and border procedures as well as measures that align their food standards to international ones. This will ensure an efficient food supply chain that meets international food safety standards and facilitates food trade.

International trade provides a channel with which the interaction, integration and partnership of countries can be attained and/or established. Despite the relevance of trade to national, regional and global economies, the documentation of these economic activities is sometimes inadequate such that it brings to question the validity of the generated data. Empirical scholars often find it difficult to analyze trade statistics with zero-trade values, especially in terms of finding natural logarithm. Researchers often deal with the zero trade statistics by employing the truncation method or censoring method. However, this has consequences for empirical analysis and policy formulation because there is information in the zero-value trade that will be lost if they are truncated from the dataset. Hence, the main challenge in the literature is the issue of the most appropriate and efficient empirical strategy for solving the problem of zero-trade values among available options. This has led to controversy in the literature with several proofs and reproofs, actions and reaction as well as counter-reaction. It is on this basis that this paper is situated to review the raging controversy on the solution to the consideration of zero values in trade statistics as applicable to positive trade analysis and/or modelling.