Competitiveness analysis of the Portuguese processed tomato sector and development strategies

This paper aims to examine the export competiveness of the Portuguese processed tomato sector through a set of indicators used to measure international competitiveness from 1981 to 2013. During the 2011-13 period, we observe a slight improvement in competitiveness indicators. The world price is an important variable for Portuguese tomato paste exports. For tomato paste, we observe inter-industry trade and for other tomato products, a horizontal intra-industry trade is observable. The anchoring of industrial development to agricultural growth will be a predominant factor for the strategy of reducing costs in processed tomato production