The competitiveness of agrifoods in Central American and Caribbean countries in the context of trade liberalization

Includes bibliography

This study evaluates aspects of ex-post competitiveness, trade specialization, the dynamics of import markets, the main competitor countries, and trade protection in the six Central American and eight Caribbean countries and their main destination markets, the European Union (EU); and the United States. Today every one of these countries is involved in regional integration initiatives, free trade agreements and multilateral trade liberalization. The countries of Central America and the Caribbean alike enjoy some degree of preferential access to their destination markets. This analysis leads to the conclusion that several of the countries studied enjoy similar strengths in terms of the ex-post competitiveness of certain products, such as melons, papayas and crustaceans, as well as lost opportunities, such as those involving beef and sesame seeds in Central America and oranges and cocoa beans in the Caribbean. For these products and traditional exports (sugar, bananas, coffee);, this paper also offers a partial analysis of ex-ante competitiveness, with reference to farm prices and yields.