Competitiveness among Asian exporters in the world rice market.
Ilyas, Muhammad ; Mukhtar, Tahir ; Javed, Muhammad Tariq 等
With the gradual reduction in trade barriers led by the process of
globalisation, more emphasis is now being placed on promoting export
competitiveness. Asia is the home of many of the world's top rice
exporters. The food-price crisis has divided Asia into "rice
haves" and "rice have-nots". In order to describe the
processes involved in securing and maintaining international
competitiveness in rice exports, the present study has used the Balassa
and White indices of revealed comparative advantage and revealed
competitive advantage respectively. Results have revealed that Pakistan
is the most competitive country in rice trade and ranks first in both
agricultural product trade and total merchandise exports.
JEL classification: C12, C43, Q17
Keywords: Asian Countries, Competitiveness, Revealed Comparative
Advantage, Revealed Competitive Advantage.
1. INTRODUCTION
The era of globalisation since the late 1940s has dramatically
changed the world's trading patterns, as well as the measures
employed by countries to survive in a world where trade is being
liberalised. With the gradual reduction in trade barriers led by the
process of globalisation, more emphasis is now being placed on promoting
export competitiveness. Competitiveness by any means is not a new issue,
as it seems nowadays. This concept has become more fashionable because
the markets liberalisation and the emphasis in a more global economy.
Competition used to be more localised within regions and nations but
now, with an increasing international trade, it applies everywhere.
Competitors are not fully identified as they used to be and now they
might come from far away places, which it was not the case previously.
Competitiveness is an indicator of the ability to supply goods and
services at the location and in the form and at the time sought after by
buyers, at prices that are as good as or better than those of potential
suppliers, while earning at least the opportunity cost of returns on
resources employed [Frohberg and Hartman (1997)]. Thus, a competitive
firm or industry or country have the ability to satisfy the consumer
with a product of the right price, right quality, right packaging etc.
i.e., creating place, time and form utility. Such an institution
therefore beats the competitors for the scare Dollars and Pounds etc. of
the consumer [Esterhuizen, et al. (2001)].
Asia is the home of many of the world's top rice exporters,
which accounts for 76 percent of rice exported each year. Prices are
shooting up worldwide, in part because many of these countries have cut
back on exports due to fears of shortage. International trade in rice is
quite small relative to total production. In fact, only 6-7 percent of
global rice production is traded each year, well below the trade shares
for other grains and oilseeds. The reason for these market
characteristics could be explained by several factors. Firstly, rice is
largely produced in Asian countries, where rice is traditionally the
major food source for nutrition. Secondly, besides being a major
producing region, Asian countries are major importers of rice. Because
of national security concerns, rice production and trade are highly
protected and sensitive. The world rice market is much more conservative
than other agricultural commodities, which restricts its development.
China is the world's largest producer and the largest consumer
of rice. Thailand is the largest exporter of rice and Philippines is the
largest importer of rice in the world.
There exists a high degree of volatility in the world rice market
because a small change in production or consumption brings a relatively
large change in its total trade. Since most of the rice is produced,
consumed and traded by Asian countries and main Asian exporters are
Thailand, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and China. Now, the international
trade under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules is free from
quantitative restrictions. A country's trade is mostly based on its
comparative advantage and competitive advantage in international trade.
So, obviously every country faces a tough competition in international
market and tries not only to maintain but also to increase its share in
market.
The objective of this study is to analyse the competitiveness by
computing comparative advantage and competitive advantage for main Asian
rice exporting countries and rank them according to their degree of
advantage. This study thus will be helpful for trade policy managers to
design efficient strategies.
Rest of the study is organised as follows. Section II presents the
literature review. Section III explains methods for analysing export
performance. Section IV contains analysis and discussion of the results.
Final Section V concludes the study.
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The Ricardian (classical) theory of comparative advantage and
Heckscher-Ohlin (neo-classical) theory explains international trade
within a two-country and two-commodity world. This simple analysis
becomes very difficult and even impossible when trade takes place among
many countries and many commodities. To overcome this restriction
Balassa (1965, 1977) developed an index of "Revealed Comparative
Advantage". Jebuni, et al. (1988) have used the Balassa Revealed
Comparative Advantage (RCA) index to analyse the comparative advantage
in exports for twelve less developed countries. Yeats (1997) studies the
possible distortions in trade patterns on account of discriminatory
trade barriers that are characteristic of the regional trade agreements
(RTAs). He uses the index of revealed comparative advantage in
conjunction with the changes in the regional orientation of exports to
identify any apparent inefficiency in trade patterns for the Mercusor
group of countries. Richardson and Zhang (1999) have applied the same
index for the U.S. to analyse the patterns of variation across time,
sectors and regions. They find the patterns to differ across different
parts of the world, over time as also for different levels of
aggregation of the export data. Yue (2001) uses the Balassa RCA index to
demonstrate the fact that China has changed its export pattern to
coincide with its comparative advantage and that there are distinct
differences in export patterns between the coastal regions and the
interiors in China. Ferto and Hubbard (2003) investigate the
competitiveness of Hungarian agriculture in relation to that of the EU
employing four indices of revealed comparative advantage including the
Balassa RCA index, for the period 1992 to 1998. Consistency tests
implies that the indices are less satisfactory as cardinal measures, but
are useful in identifying whether or not Hungary has a comparative
advantage in a particular product group. Using both a version of the
Balassa index and an export similarity index, Batra and Zeba (2005) have
analysed revealed comparative advantage at both the two and six digit
level of Harmonized System of classification for both India and China.
Their analysis reveals that the pattern of comparative advantage varies
at different levels of commodity disaggregation. Brunner and
Massimiliano (2006) employ an export unit values (UV's) cum real
competitiveness analysis to the manufacturing sector of South Asian
countries (with a particular focus on India).
Vollrath (1987) is among the earliest researchers to distinguish
between comparative advantage and competitive advantage. He argues that
comparative advantage is applied to efficient, well functioning and
undistorted prices in markets. In case, it distortions exist competitive
advantage is considered better to use. Vollrath (1987, 1991) and White
(1987) are of the view that true measure of performance in global
markets is competitive advantage rather than comparative advantage.
Vollrath (1987, 1991) has introduced revealed competitive index that
takes into account a country's exports as well as imports relative
to the rest of world's export and import of a particular commodity
under neo-classical framework.
White (1987) has used revealed competitive advantage to measure
changes in competitiveness of US agricultural trade. His method is an
extension of Balassa's method and in nature similar to
Vollrath's revealed competitive index. Revealed competitive
advantage measure has also been used in some other empirical studies to
measure economic and export performance [see, Chen (1995); Bender and Li
(2002) and Ferto and Hubbard (2003)].
But, the debate for finding an appropriate method with proven
properties to measure comparative advantage of the commodity patterns
across countries is still continued in the literature [Elumalai (2007)].
However, this study applies both the Balassa index for revealed
comparative advantage and the White index for revealed competitive
advantage to analyse the export performance of major rice exporting
Asian countries.
III. METHOD OF ANALYSIS
Economic approaches to assess competitiveness differ greatly, and
depend on analysis related to level of firms, sectors and overall
economy [Frohberg and Hartmann (1997)]. Approaches analysing the sector
level consider competitiveness to be the ability of an industry to
maintain market share, and to compete with foreign counterparts in
foreign and domestic markets under free trade conditions [Kim and Marion
(1997); Traill (1998)]. As theoretical reference, competitiveness is
mainly linked to comparative advantage, which is connected to the
Heckscher-Ohlin theory, and to competitive advantage related to the
Porter diamond model [Lall (2001)]. An analysis of competitiveness at
the sector level is usually carried out by assessing trade indices,
comparing trends and countries in the international market. In our
analysis, we have considered Revealed Comparative Advantage and Revealed
Competitive Advantage indices.
III.1. The Balassa Index
Balassa (1965) has developed "Revealed Comparative
Advantage" index that deals with many countries and many
commodities. He states that export ratio of a country reflects the
relative comparative advantage i.e.,
[R.sub.ij] = [X.sub.ij]/ [X.sub.wj] / [X.su.i] / [X.sub.w] i=1,2,
... ..., n, j=1,2,... ..., m
where [R.sub.ij ]is revealed comparative advantage of country i for
commodity j, [X.sub.ij] is export by country i of commodity j,
[X.sub.wj] is total world exports of commodity j, [X.sub.i] is total
world exports of country i, and [X.sub.w] is total world exports. The
value of [R.sub.ij] may be equal, greater or less than 1. If it is
greater than one it means the country i has a comparative advantage in
exports of commodity j because its market share is larger in the
commodity than its share in total exports and vice versa.
III.2. The White's Index
This method is an extension of Balassa's method. It takes into
account the export supply and import demand of a specific commodity for
a country. Its advantage is that it uses both export and import data and
competitive advantage is determined by both supply and demand. The
revealed competitive advantage is calculated as the difference between
revealed comparative export share for commodity j and revealed
comparative import share for commodity j. Therefore the White's
index provides the results of net comparative advantage (unlike
Blassa's approach which only takes into the account of exports).
The index is calculated as:
[RCA.sub.ij] = [RCS.sub.ij] - [RCD.sub.ij]
[RCA.sub.ij] = [X.sub.ij] / [X.sub.wj]/[X.sub.i]/[X.sub.w] -
[M.sub.ij] / [M.sub.wj]/[M.sub.i] / [M.sub.w].
Where [RCA.sub.ij] is revealed competitive advantage of country i
for commodity j, [RCS.sub.ij] is the ratio of country i's share of
commodity j to its share in total world exports, [RCD.sub.ij] is the
ratio of country i's share of commodity j to its share in total
world imports, [M.sub.ij] is import of commodity j by country i,
[M.sub.wj] is total world imports of commodity j, [M.sub.i] is total
world imports of country i, [M.sub.w] is total world imports.
If [RCA.sub.ij] > 0 and [R.sub.oj] > 1, then the results of
both the models are identical and will show that the country has an
advantage in exports of commodity j and vice versa. However, if the
signs are not the same then one may conclude that both models are
inconsistent. The study has used data for the period 1985 to 2005 that
have been collected from FAO, Trade Year book for the years 1985-2005.
The revealed comparative advantage and revealed competitive
advantage indices are useful in examining international trade
performance. In some cases they yield same results, so revealed
comparative index may easily be applied. If they yield contradictory
results it is more appropriate to apply competitive advantage index
because it also takes into account import performance.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The overview of data shows that Thailand (in Asian countries) has
the largest exporter with 29.57 percent market share in world rice
market, whereas, India remained the second largest exporter with 17.96
percent share in rice exports in 2005 (see Table 1 in the Appendix).
Despite the fact that these two countries are exporting rice in large
volume with more than 40 percent share collectively in recent years, it
does not mean that they have more comparative advantage and competitive
advantage in rice exports over other exporters.
Since greater share is not a sign of comparative of competitive
advantage over other competitors. To analyse the
"competitiveness" of a country, the models of comparative
advantage and competitive advantage have been applied to data. Keeping
in view the fact that rice is an agricultural product; the revealed
comparative advantage has been computed using agricultural trade measure
(ACA). Since rice is also a product included in total merchandise
exports, the revealed comparative advantage has also been computed using
total merchandise trade measure (TCA).
The revealed competitive advantage has also been computed using
agricultural trade measure (ACE) and total merchandise trade measure
(TCE). The overall results show that for most of the years the value of
revealed comparative advantage is greater than one (see Tables 2 and 3
respectively in the Appendix) and the value of revealed competitive
advantage is positive (see Tables 4 and 5 respectively in the Appendix).
It depicts that these countries have both comparative and competitive
advantage in rice trade.
The values of mean and variance computed explain the fact that
Pakistan has the greatest comparative advantage and the greatest
competitive advantage in agricultural trade. Vietnam has the greatest
comparative advantage and the greatest competitive advantage in
merchandise exports, yet its values are relatively close to those of
Pakistan. Thailand ranks third and India fourth, whereas, China is at
the last of the ranking with least advantage. However, a t-test has also
been applied to check whether the results of two models are
statistically same of not.
IV.1. Test of Comparative and Competitive Advantage Models
The t-test has been applied on the mean of the difference between
ACA and ACE (TCA and TCE) to determine if this difference is
significantly different from zero of not. So, our null hypothesis is
that the difference between comparative and competitive advantage is not
different from zero.
[H.sup.a.sub.0] : [ACA.sub.i] - [ACE.sub.i] = 0
[H.sup.b.sub.0] : [TCA.sub.i] - [TCE.sub.i] = 0
The alternative hypothesis is
[H.sup.a.sub.1] : [ACA.sub.i] - [ACE.sub.i] [not equal to] 0
[H.sup.b.sub.1] : [TCA.sub.i] - [TCE.sub.i] [not equal to] 0
Where i ..... 5 (1= China, 2 = India, 3=Pakistan, 4=Thailand and 5=
Vietnam)
The statistical test results in Table 1 depict that the mean and
standard error are not equal to zero for all countries and t-ratios are
also statistically significant at 5 percent for China, India, Pakistan
and Vietnam. So, we accept alternative hypothesis. We accept null
hypothesis, as t-ratio is statistically not significant at 5 percent for
Thailand. This means that revealed comparative and revealed competitive
advantage do not yield similar results for all countries except
Thailand. Thus, it is more appropriate to use competitive advantage
where results differ because competitive advantage also takes import
performance into account.
IV.2. Test of Country-to-Country Comparisons
This test determines whether the t-ratio of the difference of same
model for one country is significantly different from another country of
not. The t-test has been applied on the mean of the difference between
[ACA.sub.i] & [ACA.sub.j], [ACE.sub.i] & [ACE.sub.j],
[TCA.sub.i] & [TCA.sub.j] and [TCE.sub.i] & [TCE.sub.j] to
determine if this difference is significantly different from zero or
not. So, our null hypothesis is that difference between any pair of
country is not different from zero.
[H.sup.a.sub.0] : [ACA.sub.i] - [ACA.sub.j] = [DELTA]ACA = 0
[H.sup.b.sub.0] : [ACA.sub.i] - [ACE.sub.j] = [DELTA]ACE = 0
[H.sup.c.sub.0] : [TCA.sub.i] - [TCA.sub.j] = [DELTA]TCA = 0
[H.sup.a.sub.0] : [TCE.sub.i] - [TCE.sub.j] = [DELTA]TCE = 0
The alternative hypothesis is that difference between any pair of
country is statistically different from zero.
[H.sup.a.sub.1] : [ACA.sub.i] - [ACA.sub.j] = [DELTA]ACA [not equal
to] 0
[H.sup.b.sub.1] : [ACA.sub.i] - [ACE.sub.i] = [DELTA]ACE [not equal
to] 0
[H.sup.c.sub.1] : [TCA.sub.i] - [TCA.sub.i] = [DELTA]TCA [not equal
to] 0
[H.sup.d.sub.1] : [TCE.sub.i] - [TCE.sub.i] = [DELTA]TCE [not equal
to] 0
i=1,... ..., 5 & j=2 ... ..., 5
We have calculated t-ratios for each pair of countries using (ACA,
ACE, TCA, TCE) measures. We can see from the results provided in Table 2
that India has both comparative and competitive advantage over China in
exports of rice during 1985- 2005. Same results can also be seen for
Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam when we compare them with China. India
does not posses any comparative and competitive advantage against
Pakistan, Thailand. Vietnam has comparative advantage over India in rice
exports. But in case of competitive advantage, Vietnam's advantage
is only in merchandise exports and there is no significant difference in
agricultural product exports between these two countries. Pakistan has
both comparative and competitive advantage (in agricultural product
trade and total merchandise trade) over Thailand in exports of rice.
Pakistan has both comparative and competitive advantage in agricultural
product trade over Vietnam but there are no significant differences of
revealed comparative and competitive advantage in total merchandise
trade. The paired comparison between Thailand and Vietnam depicts that
Vietnam has only comparative advantage over Thailand in total
merchandise trade otherwise There is no statistically significant
difference between agricultural product trade and no competitive
advantage on one another in total merchandise trade.
V. CONCLUSION
From the analysis, we come to the conclusion that India, Pakistan,
Thailand and Vietnam all have both comparative and competitive advantage
over china in rice exports. There are no significant differences of
revealed competitive advantage between Thailand and Vietnam of between
India and Vietnam in agricultural product trade of Pakistan and Vietnam
in total merchandise trade. Pakistan has a revealed comparative and
competitive advantage in agricultural product trade (in rice) over all
other countries and in total merchandise trade (in rice) over China,
India and Thailand. Although Thailand and India ate the two largest
Asian exporters of rice with 47 percent of the market share in 2005, on
average they do not have the greatest comparative and competitive
advantage in rice exports. Pakistan has the greatest advantage in rice
exports, Vietnam ranks second and Thailand ranks third in five major
Asian exporters. Thus, we may conclude that both Pakistan and Vietnam
can take the advantage of competitiveness and raise their share
respectively in world rice market as compared with other Asian
competitions. Therefore, competitive advantage in rice export should be
exploited to improve the foreign sector position of both these
countries.
As this study has shown that Pakistan has a quite strong position
in rice trade vis-a-vis its Asian competitors, therefore, to further
enhance the overall gain through increase in rice exports, following
comprehensive measures should be applied:
* Government agencies should be responsible for day-to-day
administration of rice quality control in order to build up the trust
and confidence of importers in the quality and safety of the food supply
system.
* Government representatives and advisors should take part in
identifying technical, institutional and policy constraints faced by the
exporters in meeting sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements.
* Government should play its role in terms of funding new research
and development activities, aimed at rice quality improvement and cost
reduction.
Appendices
Appendix Table 1
Market Shares of Major Asian Exporters in International Rice Trade
1985-2005
Year China India Pakistan Thailand Vietnam Others
1985 7.29 4.07 6.90 25.97 0.00 55.77
1986 6.80 3.02 10.99 24.79 0.02 54.38
1987 6.84 4.95 9.06 27.27 0.07 51.82
1988 5.03 5.64 9.00 33.79 0.55 45.99
1989 2.21 5.07 6.15 35.05 7.57 43.95
1990 2.37 5.95 5.84 26.23 7.36 52.26
1991 4.08 7.61 7.75 26.85 4.21 49.49
1992 4.36 6.95 7.73 26.72 7.83 46.42
1993 5.32 8.22 6.40 25.99 6.35 47.73
1994 8.85 6.28 4.01 25.88 6.21 48.77
1995 0.77 19.30 6.31 26.61 5.34 41.67
1996 1.80 11.68 6.76 26.30 9.86 43.60
1997 4.08 14.68 7.04 17.41 10.93 45.87
1998 9.79 15.76 5.94 21.94 10.66 35.91
1999 8.57 9.23 7.51 24.79 13.03 36.87
2000 8.95 10.15 8.26 25.36 10.33 36.96
2001 5.01 10.08 7.42 22.50 8.91 46.09
2002 5.78 17.87 6.79 24.05 10.69 34.82
2003 2.75 12.65 7.94 25.84 10.27 40.54
2004 2.28 18.22 7.88 29.79 11.96 29.87
2005 2.86 17.96 14.00 29.57 11.25 24.36
Source: FAO Trade Year Book.
Others. Remaining rice exporting countries in international market.
Appendix Table 2
Revealed Comparative Advantage for Major Asian Rice Exporters
Using Agricultural Trade Measure (ACA), 1985-2005
Year China India Pakistan Thailand Vietnam
1985 2.36 3.75 20.53 16.91 0.02
1986 1.97 2.90 23.94 15.74 0.15
1987 1.90 5.21 24.58 17.35 0.81
1988 1.42 7.45 20.86 19.25 5.21
1989 0.65 5.75 12.45 17.57 31.88
1990 0.78 6.08 19.20 15.80 36.83
1991 1.15 8.21 24.67 15.01 24.35
1992 1.30 8.44 22.36 14.33 34.57
1993 1.48 8.30 24.92 14.71 29.37
1994 2.36 7.52 22.71 14.10 22.71
1995 0.24 15.54 27.42 13.04 15.34
1996 0.58 9.29 22.54 12.85 26.10
1997 1.37 12.90 38.03 14.67 29.18
1998 3.54 13.22 22.56 13.55 19.50
1999 3.04 8.31 26.42 14.48 22.17
2000 2.82 8.45 31.83 14.37 18.53
2001 1.60 7.97 30.13 12.54 18.20
2002 1.77 14.32 30.35 13.03 22.36
2003 0.85 10.16 33.59 13.03 24.05
2004 0.85 15.47 37.48 14.99 22.30
2005 0.94 12.58 51.51 15.36 18.67
Mean 1.57 9.13 27.115 14.89 20.11
Variance 0.76 13.30 68.85 3.07 115.66
Appendix Table 3
Revealed Comparative Advantage for Major Asian Rice Exporters
using Total Merchandise Trade Measure (TCA), 1985-2005
Year China India Pakistan Thailand Vietnam
1985 2.44 8.82 52.73 70.83 0.04
1986 1.98 6.91 74.99 59.51 0.42
1987 1.83 10.23 59.98 52.42 2.08
1988 1.33 11.55 56.88 60.67 15.27
1989 0.57 9.41 40.02 53.87 119.89
1990 0.64 11.37 40.14 39.74 116.93
1991 0.97 14.85 43.88 33.26 75.32
1992 0.98 12.78 42.20 30.88 113.81
1993 1.13 13.80 34.54 26.37 79.71
1994 1.77 10.14 24.88 24.46 65.50
1995 0.15 29.91 40.61 24.08 50.08
1996 0.36 18.92 43.37 25.18 72.46
1997 0.74 23.59 47.90 16.63 67.99
1998 1.82 25.45 38.67 21.84 62.30
1999 1.54 14.12 53.53 24.01 63.99
2000 1.44 14.29 58.35 23.82 45.52
2001 0.79 13.94 49.26 21.82 36.32
2002 0.82 21.47 44.06 23.14 41.20
2003 0.35 16.59 49.68 24.60 38.02
2004 0.34 22.60 52.43 27.62 52.78
2005 0.41 24.11 96.75 29.59 38.46
Mean 1.07 15.95 49.76 34.02 55.15
Variance 11.42 411.11 225.86 244.45 1242.22
Appendix Table 4
Revealed Cornpetitive Advantage for Major Asian Rice Exporters
Using Trade Agricultural Measure (ACE), 1985-2005
Year China India Pakistan Thailand Vietnam
1985 1.89 3.17 20.53 16.91 -33.33
1986 1.32 2.51 23.94 15.74 -27.36
1987 1.02 5.06 24.57 17.35 -25.90
1988 0.83 1.77 20.84 19.25 -10.18
1989 -1.07 -2.58 12.44 17.57 30.15
1990 0.68 0.80 19.20 15.80 35.35
1991 0.85 7.79 24.66 15.01 23.72
1992 1.03 7.08 22.36 14.33 34.40
1993 1.20 7.21 24.92 14.71 29.36
1994 1.70 7.45 22.54 14.10 22.60
1995 -1.15 15.54 27.42 13.04 15.13
1996 -0.32 9.29 22.52 12.85 26.02
1997 0.84 12.90 38.03 14.67 29.15
1998 3.10 13.21 22.55 13.54 19.49
1999 2.75 8.22 26.40 14.46 22.10
2000 2.37 8.37 31.82 14.36 18.46
2001 1.18 7.97 30.05 12.54 18.17
2002 1.31 14.31 30.26 13.02 22.09
2003 0.40 10.16 33.53 12.98 24.02
2004 0.85 15.47 37.48 14.99 22.30
2005 0.94 12.58 51.51 15.36 18.67
Mean 0.96 8.01 27.01 14.87 14.97
Variance 1.18 24.88 68.12 3.08 420.41
Appendix Table 5
Revealed Competitive Advantage for Major Asian Rice Exporters using
Total Merchandise Trade Measure (TCE), 1985-2005
Year China India Pakistan Thailand Vietnam
1985 2.13 8.30 52.73 70.83 -29.01
1986 1.52 6.61 74.98 59.51 -30.25
1987 1.06 10.09 59.96 52.42 -24.58
1988 0.83 6.58 56.84 60.67 2.64
1989 -1.06 4.62 40.00 53.87 118.58
1990 0.55 8.68 40.14 39.74 116.04
1991 0.74 14.67 43.88 33.26 74.78
1992 0.81 12.01 42.20 30.88 113.68
1993 0.99 13.28 34.53 26.37 79.66
1994 1.33 10.08 24.59 24.46 65.32
1995 -1.05 29.91 40.60 24.08 49.82
1996 -0.38 18.92 43.34 25.18 72.35
1997 0.34 23.59 47.89 16.63 67.95
1998 1.52 25.43 38.64 21.83 62.28
1999 1.36 14.03 53.48 24.00 63.90
2000 1.15 14.23 58.33 23.81 45.42
2001 0.51 13.94 48.93 21.82 36.28
2002 0.56 21.46 43.74 23.13 40.93
2003 0.08 16.58 49.42 24.57 37.99
2004 0.34 22.60 52.43 27.62 52.78
2005 0.41 24.11 96.75 29.59 38.46
Mean 0.60 15.22 49.66 34.00 50.23
Variance 0.69 50.05 223.89 244.63 1853.92
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Muhammad Ilyas is PhD Scholar at the Department of Economics,
Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Tahir Mukhtar is Assistant Professor
at the Department of Economics, Fatima Jinnah Women University,
Rawalpindi. Muhammad Tariq Javed <
[email protected]> is Associate
Professor at the Department of Economics, Quaid-i-Azam University,
Islamabad.
Table 1
Statistics on Differences between Comparative and Competitive
Advantage for Major Asian Rice Exporters (1985-2005)
Agricultural Product Trade
Mean Standard t-ratio Sig.
Country Error (2-tailed)
China .609 .083 7.332 * .000
India 1.121 .505 2.221 * .038
Pakistan .040 .017 2.397 * .026
Thailand .021 .011 1.839 .081
Vietnam 5.144 2.324 2.213 * .039
Total Merchandise Trade
Mean Standard t-ratio Sig.
Country Error (2-tailed)
China .464 .081 5.720 * .000
India .720 .328 2.192 * .040
Pakistan .099 .036 2.715 * .013
Thailand .013 .007 1.822 .083
Vietnam 4.914 2.263 2.171 * .042
* Indicates significance at 5 percent level.
Table 2
Statistics (t-ratios) on Differences between Countries
Comparative and Competitive Advantage for Major Asian Rice
Exporters (1985-2005)
Agricultural Product Trade
ACA ACE TCA TCE
t-ratio Sig. t-ratio Sig.
Country (2-tailed) (2-tailed)
China-India -8.852 * .000 -6.348 * .000
China-Pakistan -13.834 * .000 -14.259 * .000
China-Thailand -31.005 * .000 -29.946 * .000
China-Vietnam -7.674 * .000 -3.094 * .006
India-Pakistan -12.016 * .000 -14.434 * .000
India-Thailand -5.485 * .000 -4.956 * .000
India-Vietnam 11.921 * .000 -1.633 .118
Pakistan-Thailand 6.185 * .000 6.180 * .000
Pakistan-Vietnam 2.342 * .030 2.635 * .016
Thailand-Vietnam -2.071 .052 -0.020 .984
Total Merchandise Trade
t-ratio Sig. t-ratio Sig.
Country (2-tailed) (2-tailed)
China-India -10.158 * .000 -9.011 * .000
China-Pakistan -14.857 * .000 -15.032 * .000
China-Thailand -9.852 * .000 -9.916 * .000
China-Vietnam -6.973 * .000 -5.237 * .000
India-Pakistan -9.609 * .000 -9.704 * .000
India-Thailand -4.073 * .001 -4.057 * .001
India-Vietnam -5.073 * .000 -3.748 * .001
Pakistan-Thailand 3.908 * .001 3.902 * .001
Pakistan-Vietnam -0.547 .590 -0.050 .960
Thailand-Vietnam -2.225 * .038 -1.412 .173
* Denotes significance at 5 percent level.
