الملخص الإنجليزي
ABSTRACT
Being a net exporter of seafood products, a clear understanding of export market fundamentals is important to both policy makers and seafood businesses in Oman. This is because the economic viability of the seafood industry depends, among other things, on the market performance and the status of fisheries resources. Bearing this in mind, the overall objective of the present study is to analyze the seafood export supply of Oman to three major markets namely, the European Union (EU), Southeast Asia (SEA) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) covering the period (2001-2015).
To analyze the performance of seafood exports both quantitative and qualitative methods are followed in this study and a combination of descriptive statistics, empirical analysis, and non-parametric statistical test (Wilcoxon's signed-rank test) is used to analyze primary and secondary data collected from various government agencies and through a questionnaire survey. In performing empirical analysis, a partial adjustment modeling (PAM) framework based on a single equation is employed to identi significance of factors such as relative price, production capacity, gross domestic product (GDP), seasonality, time trend, and domestic regulatory measures (i.e. seafood export ban and trawl fishing ban) that are likely to influence the export supply behavior. Furthermore, to investigate the apparent market switching behavior between the EU and SEA markets revealed from the descriptive analysis, and to enrich the empirical findings a questionnaire survey involving five seafood processors was conducted.
The key findings from the descriptive analysis revealed that the overall Oman's seafood export during the study period was dominated by the growth in quantity rather than that of price. While there was a positive growth in price noted in the EU market, the opposite holds true for the quantity and the gross value of exports. On the other hand, for the SEA and GCC markets, a positive growth was noted for both price and quantity, and the growth in quantity was dominated in both markets. It was also found that the EU market was dominated by demersal and large pelagic species, while the SEA and the GCC markets were dominated by small pelagic species. The findings from the empirical analysis showed that the domestic regulatory measures and the relative price variable were significantly affecting the export supply to the EU market. The export supply to the SEA and GCC markets was significantly influenced by the production capacity and GDP. The results also indicated that the time lag in export supply to the SEA market is relatively less compared to the EU market. However, there was no significant time lag noted in the case of the GCC market. In investigating the apparent market switch between the EU and the SEA, the results indicated that the market switching behavior occurred in the last sub-period (2011-2015) and the switching behavior was argued to be partly influenced by domestic export ban.
This behavior was supported by the fact that there was species substitutability in market preferences observed only in the SEA and GCC markets but not in the EU market.
In examination of the potential causes of market switch using a questionnaire survey, it was found that the factors namely market potential, safety and quality measures, domestic export ban and trawl fishing ban acted in favor of the SEA market. With regard to the favorability between the EU and the SEA markets, the findings indicated that market potential, custom procedures, safety and quality measures, and production capacity were comparatively in favor of the SEA market. Based on these key findings, some policy recommendations such as the initiation of effective promotional campaigns, adoption of appropriate strategies for value added products, improvement of products quality and safety, and maintenance of long-term sustainability of fish resources were advocated to maximize the export potential consistent with the strategic objectives of fisheries sector
