Viewpoint: “Customized competitiveness” strategies for horticultural exporters – Central America focus with lessons from and for other regions

Abstract

This paper presents the idea of “customized competitiveness” as a strategy necessary for overall competitiveness in particular in globalized horticulture markets and in the “second round” of globalization that started in the mid/late 1990s. Customized competitiveness is additional and complementary to basic “structural competitiveness” that is the focus of competitiveness debates today and for the past decade. The paper illustrates the need for this new strategy, using the example of Central America, highlighting the severe challenges (similar to those facing other developing regions) it faces in the second round of globalization of horticulture markets, magnified by market liberalization culminating recently in implementation of CAFTA. The paper then illustrates “solutions” by providing examples of cutting-edge programs in various developing countries of de facto “customized competitiveness” in the form of public–private partnerships and the provision of public and semi-public goods, to help their exporters access and succeed in the new markets. We conclude with policy implications for Central America and other developing regions.