Industry-specific Trade Patterns with Eurozone and Economic Crisis: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia

Two separate processes have recently influenced the trade relationship between European Union and countries in the Western Balkan region -different speeds of integration and consequences of global economic crisis.The ease of international trade is both the objective and consequence of economic integration process.Increase in international trade between partners within the union is expected to create through competitiveness mechanism positive preconditions for the overall Union.However, these effects are expected on average and neither for every country or every economic activity.Results show that most industries in analysed countries recorded low share of intra-industry trade, not many industries exhibit strong positive trends.The industries that seem to have higher degree of intra-industry trade are mostly labour-intensive.Furthermore, high share of vertical intra-industry trade indicates that in most cases the trade relationship resembles trade between economically unequal partners.