Hungarian agri-food trade after ten years of EU accession

Jámbor, Attila – Vásáry, Miklós

Keywords: agri-food trade, EU accession, Hungary, ten years

The article analyses the changing patterns of Hungarian agri-food trade with the European Union (EU) at the tenth anniversary of EU accession. Besides descriptive statistics, the methods of revealed comparative advantages and product mapping are used for the period 2001-2012. The share of the European Union in national agri-food trade increased to 85-90% after accession, while agri-food exports increased by three times and agri-food imports by four times. The main agri-food export partners were Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Italy and Austria in the period analysed, while most agri-food products were imported from Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Austria. Two thirds of the value of national agri-food trade came from countries listed above. On the one hand, the major products in Hungarian agri-food exports were cere-als, meat, oil seeds, residues and preparations of fruits and vegetables – their overall share was above 50% in all periods analysed. On the other hand, Hungary mainly im-ported residues, meat, milk, other foodstuff and cereal preparations, altogether giving 43-45% of national agri-food trade coming from the EU in 2001-2012.
The results on revealed comparative advantages suggest that it is only live animals, cereals and residues out of 24 product groups that have comparative advantages in all the years analysed. It is also proven that 18 product groups experienced a decrease in comparative advantages from 2001-2003 to 2010-2012, indicating a deterioration of competitive positions. The results also suggest that the number of product groups both obtaining comparative advantages (disadvantages) and having a net exporter (im-porter) position has decreased (increased) after accession. The trend is even worse if we take into account that besides cereals and residues, all major product groups lead-ing national agri-food exports lost their comparative advantages.

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