Do Regulatory Policy Measures Affect Seafood Exports to the EU? Empirical Evidence from Oman

Abstract

As net exporter of seafood products, investigation of potential impacts of domestic regulatory measures such as ban on export of certain fish species and ban on demersal trawl fishing on seafood export performance is of eminent practical importance to Oman. To this aim, the main purpose of this empirical work is to examine the influence of regulatory policy measures on Oman’s seafood export supply to the European Union (EU) market covering the period 2001-2015. Influences of other potential economic factors such as relative price, production capacity, gross domestic product and seasonality are also investigated under a partial adjustment modeling (PAM) framework through the use of multiple regression techniques. It is found that the regulatory policy measures and the relative price variable are significantly affecting the export supply. The result in relation to export ban suggests that such measures generate competition between the domestic and the EU market. The empirical result also indicates a considerable time lag in export supply. The policy implications of the results are also discussed in the paper. Management authorities, policy makers and seafood companies of the respective countries may find these results useful for formulating appropriate strategies to address such concerns