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Issues in Trade Liberalisation in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries

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Sustainable Agricultural Development

Part of the book series: Cooperative Management ((COMA))

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Abstract

Member Partner Countries plus Turkey (MPCs) face numerous challenges to agricultural policy and competitiveness. The current policy strategy has not generated desperately needed economic development in rural areas and growth in value-added agriculture is low compared to other developing regions, all of which indicate a need for new approaches that go beyond conventional industry analysis. Using principles from the supply chain management literature and drawing heavily from current value chain thinking, this chapter applies a Global Value Chain Analysis (GVCA) to the fresh orange export sector in MPCs. Consumer data was collected in four European countries through quantitative surveys and Tesco loyalty card data and field interviews were conducted with value chain stakeholders in MPCs. A set of policy recommendations are presented. It is hoped the findings catalyse a discussion on the use of value chain thinking in agricultural policy formation for the region.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the following section, an assessment of the value of the preferences given under this review is presented.

  2. 2.

    Some of them have been supported by the EU research programmes, such as SustainMED (or the previous project EUMED-AGPOL) or are linked to international organisations (e.g. IFPRI, IEMED, CSER/CEPS, CEPR, CIHEAM, IMF, etc.).

  3. 3.

    See Garcia Alvarez-Coque (2002), Kuiper (2004), De Wulf, and Maliszewska (2009), Rastoin (2009), Emlinger (2010) and Abis (2011).

  4. 4.

    See the Ph.D. dissertation of Hassan Oaubouch for further details on methods and findings. The methodology is explained in Garcia Alvarez-Coque et al. (2009, 2010).

  5. 5.

    See McCalla and Josling (1985, pp. 36–41) to review the methodology of the trade elasticities calculation.

  6. 6.

    The monthly detailed results are available upon the authors’ request, and more details are also available in Ouabouch (2013).

  7. 7.

    We keep the “usual” criteria for identifying peaks: the literature identifies as tariff peaks those above 0.2 (mentioned in ICTSD 2009). Among these peaks, the modalities document circulated in the WTO current negotiations, suggests that the highest tariff reductions shall be done in those where the final bound tariff or ad valorem equivalent is greater than 75 % (World Trade Organization 2008). Following this, we will identify as “high AVE peaks” those AVE values greater than 0.75.

  8. 8.

    These country results are omitted for space reasons, but are available upon the authors’ request. More details can be found in Tudela et al. (2013).

  9. 9.

    All the details of the analysis can be found in Taghouti and Garcia Alvarez-Coque (2013).

  10. 10.

    As in the previous case, more details can be found in the SustainMED report “Agricultural trade liberalization in the Mediterranean region” SustainMED, Deliverable D10. Available at http://sustainmed.iamm.fr/index.php/publications/project-reports.

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Acknowledgments

Prof. Garcia-Alvarez-Coque and Ms. Tudela are grateful to the SustainMED project “Sustainable agri-food systems and rural development in the Mediterranean Partner Countries” (SustainMED, FP7 European Commission). Victor Martinez-Gomez is grateful for the support received from the Universitat Politècnica de València, (PAID-06-12).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Group of International Economics and Development, Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain

    Lorena Tudela-Marco, José María García Álvarez-Coque & Victor Martínez-Gómez

Authors
  1. Lorena Tudela-Marco
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  2. José María García Álvarez-Coque
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  3. Victor Martínez-Gómez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to José María García Álvarez-Coque .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Michel Petit

  2. Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Etienne Montaigne

  3. Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen IAM de Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Fatima El Hadad-Gauthier

  4. Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    José María García Álvarez-Coque

  5. School of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Konstadinos Mattas

  6. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cien CSIC Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Samir Mili

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Tudela-Marco, L., Álvarez-Coque, J.M.G., Martínez-Gómez, V. (2015). Issues in Trade Liberalisation in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries. In: Petit, M., Montaigne, E., El Hadad-Gauthier, F., García Álvarez-Coque, J., Mattas, K., Mili, S. (eds) Sustainable Agricultural Development. Cooperative Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17813-4_7

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