Determinants of Italy's agri-food trade flows with the Mediterranean non-Eu partner countries

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the determinants of Italy’s agri-food exports in the markets of Mediterranean non-EU partner countries and, particularly, the impact of Agreement Association signed in the Euro-Mediterranean partnership. The Mediterranean Sea situated at the crossroad of three continents, the European, the Asian and the African one, has ever been of great strategic interest for several geo-economical powers and in particular of the European Union as one of its foreign policy main protagonists. Italy as a centred Mediterranean country which is sharing agri-food production with some Mediterranean partners could profit from the EU’s relationships with the partners of the area even further. The authors estimate a gravity equation including some of the main variables founded in the literature review, useful to highlight the main factors which are able to influence in a significant way the level of the bilateral exchanges. The results of this study show that the variables traditionally included in the gravity equation present the expected sign. In particular, the Italian agri-food flows heading towards the Mediterranean partners is positively correlated to the income of the destination country and the colonial link and negatively to the distance incidence of the agricultural surface on the territorial land, the belonging to a specific geographical area and the Association Agreements.