RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE AGRI-FOOD TRADE: THE CASE OF SLOVENE-CROATIAN EXCHANGE

This paper examines the structure of agri-food trade with the emphasis on commerce of Slovenia and Croatia and provides some comparisons with the exchange with selected European trading partners. The focus is mainly on the period immediately before and after the EU enlargement and thus captures the so far existing effect of changing trading regime. The decline in price and quality competitiveness of Slovene agri-food products in Croatian market is observed, which is reflected also in the worsening of trade balance in year 2005 compared to 2003. As for the prevailing trade types, for Croatia the prevalence of intra-industry trade is observed, while the trade with European trading partners is determined by inter-industry trade.