Abstract

The World Trade Organization provided an avenue for Malaysia in seeking greater market access opportunities for its products including tropical fruits.Trade liberalization had shown to increase tropical fruit trade which inevitably led to greater global competition. This study was undertaken to assess the competitive position of Malaysia’s fruits against other exporters via the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Comparative Export Performance (CEP) analyses. The RCA analysis showed that Malaysia had comparative advantage over Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, China and India in the global watermelon market. Meanwhile, the CEP index revealed that Malaysia was the most competitive nation in exporting watermelon and papaya to Singapore and Hong Kong. Thus, while Malaysia’s general fruit exports were not as competitive in comparison to other players in the analyses, exports of Malaysia’s watermelon and papaya into various markets proved otherwise. This showed that, policy-wise, Malaysia should pay extra focus in allocating resources to further develop its watermelon and papaya industries to enhance their competitiveness and market

Abstrak
Organisasi Perdagangan Dunia (WTO) membuka ruang kepada Malaysia bagi mencari peluang pasaran baru termasuk pasaran untuk buah-buahan tropika. Liberalisasi perdagangan telah membantu dalam peningkatan perdagangan buah-buahan tropika yang secara langsung mendedah negara kepada persaingan global. Kajian ini dijalankan untuk menilai daya saing buah-buahan Malaysia dengan pesaingnya, dengan menggunakan kaedah analisis RCA dan CEP. Analisis RCA menunjukkan Malaysia mempunyai faedah bandingan terhadap Thailand, Indonesia, Filipina, Singapura, China dan India bagi pasaran tembikai di peringkat global. Indeks CEP pula menunjukkan Malaysia ialah negara paling bersaing dalam pengeksportan betik dan tembikai terutamanya di pasaran Hong Kong dan Singapura. Walaupun Malaysia tidak begitu bersaing berbanding dengan beberapa pengeksport buah-buahan lain secara agregat, Malaysia sangat bersaing untuk buah-buahan tertentu seperti tembikai dan betik dalam pasaran yang spesifik. Oleh itu, Malaysia harus memberi penumpuan yang mendalam untuk membangunkan industri betik dan tembikai agar ia lebih berdaya tahan dan berdaya saing.