Export performance and direction of trade of dried apricot from Afghanistan

Abstract

Apricot is one of the most delicious refreshing and nourishing fruits. Afghanistan produces 1.09 lakh tonnes of apricot during 2018 (Afghanistan statistical year book). It is one of the important commodities in export basket of Afghanistan. The major export markets for Afghan dried apricot are India and USA. The present study aims to quantify the export performance and changing structure of dried apricot exports from Afghanistan. Secondary data on area, production and country wise quantity of exports of dried apricot was collected from FAO statistics, ITC and APEDA for a period of 13 years from 2006 to 2018. Compound Annual Growth Rate was computed for studying the trend in area, production, yield, export quantity and export value for dried apricot. Markov chain analysis was attempted to assess the direction of change in exports. Markov chain analysis results showed that, India is the stable market for Afghanistan’s dried apricot and USA is less stable markets India is the main country to import dried apricot in the next five years. It shows high value in terms of quantity and percentage which is more than 50 per cent of all Afghanistan’s dried apricot export.