Structure and Convergence of Agro-Food Trade of Central and Eastern European Countries with the European Union during Pre-Accession
Structure and Convergence of Agro-Food Trade of Central and Eastern European Countries with the European Union during Pre-Accession

Summary/Abstract: We analyse agro-food trade structures of Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) with the European Union (EU-15) market to identify the specialisation patterns during the pre-accession using different trade indices. The analyses assess whether these patterns in the CEECs agro-food trade structures indicate convergence of the agro-food trade specialisation. We find that CEECs agro-food export has converged towards greater structural similarity with the EU-15 market, but less in high and very high quality differentiated agro-food products. This implies some of the CEECs pre-accession integration difficulties with higher valued agro-food products on the EU-15 market during adjustments and structural changes of CEECs’ agro-food export patterns towards more competitive the EU-15 market.

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