Competitive performance analysis and European Union trade : The case of the prepared swine meat sector

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the competitive performance of EU countries for the prepared swine meat sector over the 1990-2003 period. This sector was chosen for the role traditional products play in most EU countries. To assess competitiveness, and to compare the trends over the last fifteen years, the analysis evaluates several trade indices: Revealed Comparative Advantage, the Vollrath indices, Net Export Index, and Grübel-Lloyd index. The data source was the Eurostat data base, considering intra-EU export and import data referred to 17 sub-sectors with 8 digit codes. Moreover, cluster analysis was applied to highlight groups of countries with similar features. Good competitive performance in the prepared swine meat sector is observed in Italy, Spain, Ireland and Austria, all of which were found to be specialised and export oriented in the sector. Germany and France show positive competitive performance, but a high level of intra-industry trade and low specialisation is also revealed. Denmark is characterized by negative dynamics of competitiveness even though there are high exports in the sector; a similar trend is observed in Belgium and the Netherlands. The rest of the countries show weak competitiveness for the analysed sector. Moreover, the type of exported product varies greatly: Italy and Spain export dried or smoked swine meat, whereas Germany and Denmark export mainly sausages and preserved swine meat.