Reconsidering the Greek Agri-Food Export Sector: What Lessons from the EU Partners?

Abstract

The conjuncture of both the economic and the pandemic crisis has brought to fore the urgency for the Greek economy to reconsider sustainable economic growth strategies. In the light of recent efforts to boost Greek exports, the agri-food sector is called upon to play an important role. This article is about the need for the Greek economy to revisit its export growth strategies with regard to the agri-food sector, by assessing the factors affecting the performance of the EU Mediterranean agri-food exporter countries, such as France, Italy and Spain, including Greece. The applied gravity model methodology and both OLS and PPML estimations were conducted by use of UNCTADStat data between 1995 and 2019. The findings suggest that improving the availability of Greek agri-food products for exports constitutes a prerequisite for the competitiveness of this sector in international markets, which can be achieved by strengthening synergies between agribusinesses and by facilitating product standardization procedures.