Trade Performance of Meat and Meat Preparation Sector in Malaysia: The Case of Non-Ruminant

Abstract

Over the years Malaysia has undergone a substantial and persistent food trade deficit. It is continue to grow at an alarming rate as the figures climbed to a staggering RM 10.1 billion in 2008. Registered at 3.4 billion in 2005, it swelled to RM 4.9 billion in 2000. If this detrimental trend continues unimpeded, the food trade deficit is expected to reach RM12.4 billion by 2010 with food imports at RM27.3 billion, far outweighing exports worth RM14.9 billion. This phenomenon has to be arrested, which requires Malaysia to boost its food exports and it is a need of the policy makers, practitioners, producers and the government agencies to undertake appropriate action related this issues. This study is to evaluate the related factors and to evaluate the competiveness of 10 food commodities in the meat and meat preparation sector. The data cover non ruminant commodities in the HS 6 digits group which are expected to have high potential in the future. The studies will be based on the concept of revealed comparative advantage (RCA). The basic logic behind RCA is that it evaluates comparative advantage on the basis of a country’s specialization in (net) exports relative to some reference group. A different interpretation of comparative advantage is furnished by Vollrath indices, which are adopted in this study. Vollrath offers three alternative specifications of revealed comparative advantage, they are; relative export advantage (RXA), relative import advantage (RMA) and relative trade advantage (RTA). From this studies contributed and demonstrated the potential performance of sub selected sector in the non ruminants.