AGRI-FOOD PRODUCTS QUALITY AS EXPORTS COMPETITIVENESS DETERMINANT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

Abstract

Products quality and safety are important determinants of countries' export competitiveness. Issues of the quality of agri-food products are gaining more and more importance, bearing in mind modern challenges and consumer needs. This is very important for developing countries, including the Republic of Serbia, bearing in mind the importance of this sector for exports and overall economic development. On the other hand, these countries are lagging behind developed countries in terms of quality standards, due to the expensive certification and quality standardization procedures. The growth of competitiveness should be achieved through the improvement of product quality standards, product differentiation and introduction of innovations in the agri-food sector. The goal of the research is to examine the quality of the most important export agri-food products of the Republic of Serbia. The unit value (UV) index, as a measure of product quality, is used to analyse the quality of the most important agri-food products on the most important export markets, with using secondary ITC data. The multiple regression determined that the improvement of agricultural products quality has a positive impact on the growth of exports and competitiveness of agri-food sector of the Republic of Serbia. Namely, the competitiveness of agri-food sector will depend primarily on the ability of this sector to respond to the requirements related to food safety and quality standards, as well as the possibility of investing and innovating processing capacities, in order to create a high-quality final product with high value added.