Czech Agricultural Trade After EU Accession as a Reflexion of the Competitiveness of Czech Agriculture and Food Industry Under the EU Single Market and Changes in WTO Commitments

The development of the Czech agricultural trade after EU accession in 2004 is a reflexion of changing trade conditions (especially the entry on the EU single market and taking over the EU commitments to the WTO), effectiveness of the Czech agriculture and food industry. The main characteristics of the changes are the growth of the negative trade balance, a substantial increase of the trade turnover with EU countries to the detriment of the third countries and the growth of exports of agricultural raw materials accompanied with the growth of imports of more processed products. The main cause is the orientation of the Czech agriculture on products with a lower demand on labour quantity and quality and on simpler technologies, together with a lower effectiveness of domestic primary processors. Besides the global trade indicators, this development is documented by selected RCA indicators