Competitiveness of meat and associated products in international trade

Abstract

There has been considerable growth in global meat trade recently in line with globally increasing population and changing diets. The paper analyses competitiveness patterns in global meat trade between 1989 and 2018. The article applies the method of revealed comparative advantages on global meat trade data and reaches a number of conclusions. First, results show top 10 countries in global meat exports and imports as well as most traded products. Global meat exports are dominated by the United States, Brazil and the Netherlands, whole main meat importers were Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. The paper shows that global meat trade is highly concentrated by country and product but this concentration has decreased considerably in the previous 20 years. By analysing specialisation in global meat trade, a diverse picture becomes apparent where export positions and comparative advantages are not always moving together. Last but not least, Hungarian positions are also analysed in context throughout the paper.