Export Competitiveness of Indonesian and Thai Fresh Coconuts in China

Abstract

Fresh coconuts in the inner shell (HS 080112) are an agricultural export commodity supplied by Indonesia and Thailand to China. This study compared their revealed comparative advantage, annual changes in export-market share, and export unit values during 2015–2024. A descriptive analysis was conducted using the trade indicators and annual values reported from International Trade Centre Trade Map, with national coconut-production information from FAOSTAT providing contextual background. Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) was used to describe export specialization, Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) to express the same pattern on a symmetric scale, Export Competitiveness Index (ECI) to describe year-on-year market-share changes, and unit value to compare export value per tonne. Both countries recorded RCA values above one throughout the period. Indonesia's RCA declined from 58.10 in 2015 to 5.17 in 2023 before recovering to 8.89 in 2024; Thailand's RCA rose from 6.53 in 2015 to 37.95 in 2023 and was 34.80 in 2024. In 2024, Indonesia's ECI was 1.67, compared with Thailand's 0.82, while Indonesian export volume exceeded Thai volume. Indonesian unit values were consistently lower, reaching US$298.22 per tonne versus US$837.87 per tonne for Thailand in 2024. These findings identify different patterns of specialization, annual market-share change, and export unit value, but do not directly establish differences in product quality or production efficiency.