THE COMPETITIVE POSITIONS OF POLAND AND OF THE COUNTRIES OF THE WESTERN BALKANS IN AGRI-FOOD TRADE WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to compare the competitive positions of Poland and of sixcountries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) in their trade in agri-food products with theEuropean Union (EU) in 2010–2015. To this end, the synthetic tradecompetitiveness index (CI) was created, being the arithmetic average of twonormalised indices of the competitive position, i.e. the trade coverage index (TC)and the Balassa revealed comparative advantages index (RCA). The study is basedon the trade data from the WITS – World Integrated Trade Solution database(Comtrade, HS – Harmonised System 2002), expressed in USD. Agri-foodproducts are understood as products classified in chapters 01–24 of the HarmonisedCommodity Description and Coding System (HS). The research results show thatonly in trade of 5 product groups no country from the Western Balkans competedwith Poland in the EU market. In other product groups which were competitive inPolish exports Poland competed in the EU market with some of the WesternBalkan countries.