📄 Abstract
This paper analyses India’s processed food export competitiveness using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) indices calculated at seven processing stages — Raw, Minimal Processing, Salt/Sugar Processing, Fermentation/Smoking, Composite, Ingredients, and Precursor — in a dataset of 1751 observations between 1995 and 2023. The tools of analysis are descriptive statistics, time series analysis, variance decomposition and panel regression with Fixed Effects (FE) specification based on the Hausman test. Processing levels Results show that there is considerable variation in competitiveness across levels of processing). India holds a recurring and robust comparative advantage in Ingredients (mean RCA = 2.57) and Minimal Processing (mean RCA = 2.21) particularly in nuts and vegetable fats and in all the vegetable-based sub-sectors. By contrast, Salt/Sugar Processing (mean RCA = 0.39) and Precursor (mean RCA = 0.22) remain rather feeble. Variance decomposition shows that 62.71 percent of total RCA variation can be attributed to the category-level fixed effects, thus lining up with the FE specification. The results reveal a structural dualism characterizing India's Agro-food trade that portrays Agro-food competitiveness being firmed at lower and intermediate processing levels with marginal entry into high-value composite and precursor products."
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📚 How to Cite:
Venkata Ramana Manduru , INDIA'S PROCESSED FOOD EXPORT COMPETITIVENESS: A DISAGGREGATED RCA ANALYSIS ACROSS PROCESSING LEVELS , Volume 14 , Issue 6, June 2026, EPRA International Journal of Economic and Business Review(JEBR) , Pages: 21 - 25 , DOI: https://doi.org/10.36713/epra30415