DIVISION OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICSINDIAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

NEW DELHI- 110 012

CREDIT SEMINARSpeaker: Rishabh Kumar Date: 07.11.2014Roll No.: 20372 Venues: Seminar Hall Chairman: Dr. I Sekar Seminar Leader:Dr. D.R. Singh

Capacity building in agricultural trade

India is the major producer of many important agricultural products which provides it an immense

opportunity to establish its place in the international market. But contrastingly, the case is opposite i.e.

India’s share in world export and import has been very marginal (1.70% and 1.22% respectively) (2010-11).

Even after strong leverage from the developing nations during the Doha Negotiations, the import tariff

continues to be one of biggest hurdles in the international trade. Import tariff rates for agricultural

commodities averages about to 62% with large variations throughout the world, ranging from 25%(in North

America) to almost 113%( in South Asia). Although the tariff rates are declining as a result of FTAs, the

problem of Non Trade Barriers pose a serious problem for developing countries. To enhance the trade

competitiveness, India has made significant reforms at the institutional level like APEDA and National

Codex Committee. Due to high price volatility, farmers’ price realization in domestic market as well as share

in export prices has been low. It needs strong price linkages and effective government intervention. Even

though India and other developing nations are marginal players, the recent trends of trade growth and their

future projections are highly promising, especially after the fall of 2009.

Trade competitiveness for commodity depends on its comparative advantage and country’s ability to

develop comparative advantage. There are various measures of trade competitiveness like nominal protection

coefficient, domestic resource cost ratio, effective protection coefficient, etc. All these measures can be

obtained by using policy analysis matrix (PAM). The PAM uses the various information on economic and

social costs and prices. The policy analysis matrix prepared for Indian rice shows that India has a niche

market access in spite of competition.

References:

Aarathi, L.R., Shivkumar, Negi, D.S. and Singh D.R. (2012), Prevailing Standards and Dimensions Governing Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Compliance in Indian Black Pepper Supply Chain, Agricultural Economics Research Review, Vol. 25(No.1), pp 69-78 Chand, Ramesh and Saxena, Raka (2014), Bilateral India-Pakistan Agricultural Trade: Trends, Composition and Opportunities, ICRIERDeb, U.K.(2007), Non-Tariff Barriers in Agricultural Trade: Issues and Implications for Least Developed Countries Greer, C.A., et.al. (2012), Sample Cost of Production of Rice, University of California Hoda, A. and Gulati, G. (2013), India’s Agricultural Trade Policy and Sustainable Development, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Geneva, Switzerland Kumara, Charyulu D. and Prahadeeswaran, M. (2012), Capacity Building for Improving Trade Competitiveness and Price Realization of Indian Agriculture,Centre for Management in Agriculture,Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad http://eands.dacnet.nic.in/- Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Department of Agriculture

http://agriexchange.apeda.gov.in/- APEDA Agri Exchange http://www.dgciskol.nic.in/data_information.asp- DGCIS

http://trade.indiamart.com/