Food safety regulations and export responses of developing countries: The case of Turkey’s fig and hazelnut exports

Year of publication2013

AuthorFAO

PublisherFAO

AbstractFood safety standards are gaining importance as trade regulations. These regulations affect exports in three main ways depending on the capacities of exporting countries: trade-impeding effects, neutral effects, and catalyst effects. Although previous studies confirm the trade impeding effect of regulations, recent studies show that strict regulations can stimulate developing countries through the scale effect as in the case of some African exporters. In addition, developing countries can benefit from extensive governmental guidance in terms of coping with standards. Harmonization of standards as a requirement of economic integration also leads to improvement in export performance. This study outlines the interaction between regulation and export responses by examining the change in export flow from Turkey to the EU partners after food safety regulations of the EU were put into effect, drawing policy implications in terms of food safety-export performance interaction. The empirical results show that the harmonization of EU food safety regulation in 2002 positively influenced hazelnuts exports, while the EU food safety regulation in 2007 reduced the volume of fig exports. The rise in export unit values indicates that Turkish primary food products responded to the EU food safety regulation with quality improvements accompanied by higher unit prices.

 

ThemeAgricultural Commodities and Development

Product typeBook (stand-alone)

SeriesFAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper

CountryTürkiye

Areas of workEmerging Trends, Challenges and Opportunities