Tendency of the world market position of Hungarian meat products

Poór, Judit

Keywords: competitiveness, meat industry, intra-industrial trade

In recent years meat production has stagnated, while its foreign trade has dynami-cally increased as a result of the accession to the European Union (EU). This is why the role of foreign trade in the meat industry is more and more important. The increase of foreign trade has resulted in the strengthening of intra-industrial trade (IIT). On the basis of the latest data (2011) there was only one product within the group of products which was exported but not imported by Hungary. For the other products two-way trade was characteristic. This paper analyses the tendency of the foreign trade of meat products from several points of view. On the basis of the analysis the foreign trade po-sition of meat products is more or less successful. Investigation on the level of products identifies the meat products most competitive in foreign trade. The circle of these products has not changed considerably since the mid-2000s. The products characteris-ing a prominently good foreign trade position are essentially meat of domestic poultry and pigs. They had a 59.7% share in meat exports and a 50.7% proportion in the meat foreign trade in 2011. In connection with the intra-industrial trade analysis the paper identifies the products characterising near the same export and import price (horizon-tal IIT) by which preference of domestic sales would be practical as opposed to imports in parallel with the solving of the general competitiveness problem of the Hungarian meat industry, because those weaken the market position and international competi-tiveness of the Hungarian meat products.

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