THE COMPETITIVENESS OF SELECTED VEGETABLES PRODUCED IN JORDAN AND EXPORTED TO THE GULF STATES

Although Jordan suffers from limited water resources, the country has a comparative advantage to produce some fruits and vegetables, especially during the off-season periods. The total vegetable exports from Jordan in 2017 were about 791 thousand tons (about 52% of the total production). In 2017, about 91% of the exported vegetables went to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Additionally, about 51% of the exports went to Oman, 14% to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and 12% to Kuwait. This research aimed to assess the competitiveness of Jordan's vegetables in the GCC countries. The selected vegetables were tomatoes, sweet melon, watermelon, and cucumbers. The GCC countries are the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and Oman. The analysis used five competitive-advantage indicators, Export Market Share (EMS), Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), the Trade Entropy Index (TEI), Comparative Export Performance (CEP), and Export Performance Index (EPI), to evaluate the competitiveness of the selected crops in GCC counties. The results showed that Jordan has a relatively high level of competitiveness in the GCC countries.