EU ACCESSION AND TRADE INTEGRATION: THE GRAVITY MODEL OF TRADE IN THE CASE OF THE EU CANDIDATE COUNTRIES
In the majority of the EU potential members agricultural sector is playing a prominent role. Such an outcome is based on the high contribution of the agricultural sector on GDP, employment and trade accounts. EU initiated bilateral trade liberalization with the Western Balkans through the establishment of the ATPs. Furthermore, trade liberalization is extended in the regional level through the establishment of renewed CEFTA 2006. Despite the significant improvement, their export competitiveness remains weak. In the long run, agricultural exports might contribute on improvement of the export performance of the EU candidates. Main findings of the gravity model employed in this paper suggest that exports are positively affected by product size (GDP), and to lesser extent by the GDP of trading partners. Exports fall with the increase of the distance, and the fall in the value of exports is greater as larger is the distance between the trading partners. Therefore, the marginal fall in exports increases as far as the geographical distance between the trading partners increase. Initial assumptions that PTAs and cultural ties facilities the trade flows were affirmatively confirmed. Trade liberalization had a positive implication on improving export performance of the EU candidate countries.
An analysis of selected aspects of international business in Slovak dairies in the EU framework.
1Selye University in Komárno, Faculty of Economics, Bratislavská 3322, 945 01 Komárno, Slovakia 2Technical University, Faculty of Economics, Němcovej 32, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia 3Slovak University of Agriculture, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Science, Tr. A. Hlinku 2, 949 76 Nitra, Slovakia 4Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Faculty of Economics and Management, Tr. A. Hlinku 2, 949 76 Nitra, Slovakia
ANALYZING CONSUMERS’ OPINION ON ORGANIC FOOD, THEIR SAFETY AND AVAILABILITY IN THE SLOVAK FOOD MARKET
In our paper we focus on the consumers´ opinion on bio - food, their safety and availability in the Slovak food market. The analysis is based on a survey organized in the period between December 2009 and January 2010. From the methodological aspect, basic approaches of descriptive statistics have been used, as well as methods of association measurement. The test of robustness tested Chi-Square statistic. The robustness have been judged based on the p-values. Correlations have been tested through the Contingency coefficient and Cramer's V coefficient. From the survey it can be concluded that even though consumers have some idea about bio – food and trust them more compared to other conventional food, they think that their market supply is not sufficient. Respondents consider media and internet, as the most important information source that they wish to be informed on bio-food safety and control, ecological agriculture, eco-agroturism, as well as on the effect of agriculture on the environment. Through the statistics of robustness, it was found out that the effect of gender, education, economic activity and faculty of the surveyed respondents (students from Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences (FBP) had a better information on bio – food) proved to be statistically significant.  doi:10.5219/16