ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1586707
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Food Security and Trade Resilience in Sustainable Agricultural SystemsView all 28 articles
Roads, Trade, and Growth: PPML Evidence on Pakistan's Vegetable Export Performance
Provisionally accepted
Humayun Khan*
Qi Chunjie- College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
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The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with the objective of enhanced infrastructural development, trade cooperation, and regional economic prosperity is a pivotal project. This study investigates the patterns and prospects of CPEC on vegetable exports in Pakistan. We analyze a panel dataset of Pakistan's vegetable export destinations countries from 2003 to 2021. We preferred the Poisson Pseudo Maximum-Likelihood (PPML) as the state-of-the-art technique in the trade gravity framework for estimation. The findings revealed that Pakistan's economic activities with the countries linked with CPEC have grown. The total length of the road as a proxy of road infrastructure is a key factor in determining Pakistan's vegetable export performance. The importer countries' GDP and the legacy of colonial links also enhance Pakistan's vegetable export performance. Distance, contiguity, and language negatively affect Pakistan's vegetable exports.Additionally, rising domestic vegetable consumption has reduced export capacity while increasing imports. Moreover, we also found an inverse relation of vegetable exports to the countries that were part of Pakistan in the past. Finally, based on the findings of our estimates we put forth suggestions to respond to the vegetable trade deficit of Pakistan.
Keywords: Agriculture, Vegetables, Trade, BRI, CPEC, infrastructure, Gravity model
Received: 03 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Khan and Chunjie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Humayun Khan, College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei Province, China
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