Agri-Food Export Strategies in Free Trade Agreements - the Case Study of Serbia in the Serbia-China FTA

Vesna Popovic, Katica Radosavljevic (), Branko Mihailovic, Simona Roxana Patarlageanu, Jonel Subic and Marko Jelocnik
Additional contact information
Vesna Popovic: Institute of Agricultural Economics, Belgrade, Serbia
Katica Radosavljevic: Institute of Agricultural Economics, Belgrade, Serbia
Branko Mihailovic: Institute of Agricultural Economics, Belgrade, Serbia
Simona Roxana Patarlageanu: Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
Jonel Subic: Institute of Agricultural Economics, Belgrade, Serbia
Marko Jelocnik: Institute of Agricultural Economics, Belgrade, Serbia

The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, 2025, vol. 27, issue 69, 351

Abstract: The objective of the research is the evaluation of the competitiveness of Serbia’s exports in the agro-food trade with China, with the aim of deciding on the appropriate export strategy within the 2024 Serbia-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Export competitiveness diagnostics comprises 2018-2022 trade performance indicators (trade flows, export diversification and technological classification and indices of trade specialisation, intra-industry trade and revealed comparative advantage), review of China's tariff concessions and analysis of supply trends in the agri-food sector. Revealed comparative advantage indices coupled with tariff concessions indicate a number of agri-food products with comparative advantage and good prospects in the Chinese market. However, other trade performance indicators point to serious weaknesses in Serbian agri-food exports to China, including high product concentration, overall net export competitive disadvantage, prevalence of primary products, and low intra-industry trade, resulted from significant supply constraints. These findings, coupled with the growing demand for healthier and more nutritious foods in China, point to an export strategy based on export diversification and product differentiation, rather than export volume. Research complements the literature on agri-food competitiveness and may be of interest to a number of agri-food economies in the era of proliferation of FTAs.

Keywords: agri-food trade; export competitiveness; free-trade agreement; value-based supply chains; Serbia; China. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 Q13 Q17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/temp/Article_3408.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aes:amfeco:v:27:y:2025:i:69:p:351

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal from Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Valentin Dumitru ().