Export competitiveness and concentration analysis of major sugar economies with special reference to India

Abstract

PurposeThis paper seeks to examine the export competitiveness and concentration level of the 15 top sugar exporting countries over the last 18 years (2001–2018) with special reference to India.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the paper utilizes a review based approach and explains the structures of major sugar economies in context to protected and unprotected perspectives. Subsequently, empirical research was carried out to assess the competitiveness level of sugar using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) approach and Hirschman Herfindahl Index.FindingsThe study found structural changes in cane or beet sugar, and molasses over the time period between 2006 and 2015. Further, the findings confirmed that despite the stringent regulations in European Union, the United States of America, Guatemala, Mexico, Thailand, China, and India, the comparative advantage is high up to seven to nine sugar categories. Besides, despite the indulgent regulations in the Colombia, Brazil, and Canada, the comparative advantage is only consistent up to two to three sugar categories.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides an overview of competitiveness patterns of 15 sugar exporting countries and further compare their comparative and concentration levels. In this context, in future, it would be interesting to study the macro-economic and firm and industry-specific factors which may strengthen the study findings.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that the sugar export of few countries (i.e. Mexico and Canada) is restricted up to their trade pacts and free trade zones which is restricting the competitiveness level and performance. Accordingly, such countries need to enlarge their business boundaries to foster their export competitiveness level. Rational subsidies and governmental assistance in diversification schemes in terms of products' range and sustainable processes can make India a consistent exporter in more categories.Originality/valueAlthough, the previous studies attempted to examine the sugar industry with particular country context, this study enlarge the body of knowledge through simultaneously examining the sugar export scenario of fifteen sugar exporting countries and providing a broad comparative view of their competitiveness and concentration levels.

Selected EU Countries Crop Trade Competitiveness from the Perspective of the Czech Republic

“…In addition, Sheetal et al [39] analysed export competitiveness using an evaluation of RCA and the Hirschman Herfindahl Index. An examination of export performance based on RCA evaluation can also be found in Carraresi and Banterle [40].…”

An Overview of EAFRD Allocation and Innovation’s Role Towards a Competitive European Agriculture Sector

“…The subject is discussed at the international, regional, country, and type of crop level. Benesova, et al discussed the competitiveness of the post-soviet countries' agricultural trade (Benesova, et al, 2020); Nurgazina, et al examined the competitiveness of agriculture trade between China and Kazakhstan, (Nurgazina, et al, 2020); Lemus, et al and Magana, et al concentrated on Mexican agricultural competitiveness (Lemus, et al, 2020), (Magana, et al, 2020); while Erdem examined the competitiveness of the dried sector (Erdem, 2020) and Sheetal, et al investigated the export competitiveness of major sugar economies with a focus on India (Sheetal, et al, 2020).…”

Czech Comparative Advantage in Agricultural Trade with Regard to EU-27: Main Developmental Trends and Peculiarities

“…Besides to the mentioned literature, a number of recent research papers emphasize the examination of agri-food export and EU trade competitiveness, highlighting the main determinants of selected European countries with different viewpoints [5,[27][28][29][30], including the geographical/climatical aspects of different areas [31][32][33][34][35][36][37], or peculiarities of selected agri-food markets [38][39][40][41][42][43]. These, and other related publications, offer a lot of ground to cover for authors of future research.…”