The Impacts of Economic Reforms and Trade Liberalisation on Agricultural Export Performance in Pakistan

Economic reforms and trade liberalisation policies have been widely adopted in developing countries in recent years. Pakistan is no exception. This paper focuses on the effects of economic reform policies on the agricultural export performance. A number of studies have investigated the effects of trade liberalisation on export growth in developing countries, and have reached inconclusive results. Some studies have identified positive effects of trade liberalisation on export performance [Krueger (1997); Bleaney (1999); and Ahmed (2002)], others confirmed an insignificant or even a negative relationship [Greenaway, et al. (1994); Jenkins (1996) and Greenaway, et al. (2002)]. There are number of reasons for conflicting conclusions including different researchers have used different indicators for liberalisation and different methods to analyse the effect; difference in the extent of liberalisation studies; most studies have analysed scenarios rather than evaluating the effects, and so on. The present study analyses agricultural trade policy of Pakistan and accesses the impact of trade liberalisation on agricultural export performance, especially diversification, competitiveness, and openness. The relative importance of domestic supply related factors such as tariffs, quotas, etc. compared with external demand factors in affecting agricultural export expansion is analysed with respect to (i) relative agricultural export growth, (ii) changes in market shares of (traditional) agricultural exports, and (iii) changes in the export commodity composition.