Revealed Comparative Advantage of selected ASEAN countries' crustacean export to Japan

This paper examines the factors that influence the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) of selected Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries' crustacean export to Japan, with particular interest in the effect of Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Disease (AHPND). AHPND was reported in China before spreading spread to Viet Nam, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. The data used in this study is for the period of 2010-2016 involving six ASEAN countries Japanese crustacean import partners (Viet Nam, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines and Malaysia). The dataset is a balanced panel dataset for the selected six countries in seven years, estimated using random-effect model. The findings show that AHPND and exchange rate of selected ASEAN exporters to Japan are significant towards the bilateral RCA of crustacean to Japan. Meanwhile, income per capita in Japan and domestic production of crustacean in Japan were not significant towards the bilateral RCA. It is suggested that ASEAN exporters continue to increase effort to address AHPND so that export to their major market (Japan) will not be affected. Future studies may explore more countries affected by AHPND RCA and exports, not limited to ASEAN countries only, but to more major crustacean importing countries (for example, United States, Japan, China, Spain and France which imports more than USD1 billion of crustacean in 2017 and collectively imports more than 60%) of crustaceans globally.