ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Sago is a potential commodity for economic development in rural areas such as Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Malaysia and Indonesia play an important role as sago producers globally, and so were close competitors in the Asia region. Market issues are always rising as the main issues among the exporters. Based on the previous studies, Indonesia holds the title as the largest plantation of sago meanwhile, Malaysia was estimated to be the third-largest in terms of plantation of sago but has been the biggest exporter for the sago compare to Indonesia. Therefore, this issue is significant to be discussed. The research indicates the competitiveness of sago between Malaysia and Indonesia to know which countries have the most market share in three decades. Malaysia and Indonesia both are the largest exporters of sago in the region. Thus, the aim of this research is to analysis the competitiveness between these two largest exporters of sago. This paper were purposes to analyse Malaysia and Indonesia’s comparative advantage from 1988 to 2019 by using export growth rate and the Balassa index RCA to find patterns of variation across parts of the world over different export data segments. There are also ln RCA and RSCA methods conducted to solve the skewness problem in the data. The results from the analysis shows that Malaysia has almost total dominance of comparative advantage for sago export. Meanwhile, Indonesia was not consistent in the export for sago market compare to Malaysia.
Abu, M. H., Ali, M. J., & Khairul, M. Y. (2001). Management Accounting. Journal of Accounting, 42(1), 234–245. Balassa, B. (1965). Trade liberalisation and ‘revealed’ comparative advantage. Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, 33, 99–123.
Balassa, B. and Noland, M. (1989). Revealed Comparative Advantage in Japan and the United States. Journal of International Economic Integration 4(2): 8-22.
Ballance, R. H., Forstner, H., and Murray, T. (1987). Consistency tests of alternative measures of comparative advantage. The Review of Economics and Statistics 69(2): 157-161.
Bobirca, A., and Paul-Gabriel, M. (2011). A Multilevel Comparative Assessment Approach to International Services Trade Competitiveness: The Case of Romania and Bulgaria. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 1(1): 1-6.
Capobianco-Uriarte, M. D. L. M., Casado-Belmonte, M. D. P., Marín-Carrillo, G. M., and Terán-Yépez, E. (2019). A bibliometric analysis of international competitiveness (1983–2017). Sustainability, 11(7), 1877.
Craun Research. (2021). (2021). What is sago? Source: Department of Agriculture Sarawak, 2018. Retrieved from https://craunresearch.com.my/what-is-sago/
Dasar komoditi Negara 2011-2020. (2012). (2021) Bab 10. Mengeksploitasi Potensi Industri Sago. pp. 62-66. Retrieved from https://www.pustaka-sarawak.com/eknowbase/attachments/1596527434.pdf
De Cepeda, M. S., and Bernabéu, R. (2019). Evolution of the processed tomato sector in Portugal and Spain: comparative analysis. Emirates Journal of Food and Agriculture, 470-476.
Delmar, F., Davidsson, P., and Gartner, W. B. (2003). Arriving at the high-growth firm. Journal of Business Venturing 18(2): 189–216.
Department of Statistics Malaysia. (2020). (2021, Mei 20). Selected Agriculture Indicators, Malaysia, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/landingv2
Dhiman, R., and Sharma, M. (2017). Productivity trends and determinants of Indian textile industry: A disaggregated analysis. International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, 15(22): 113-124.
Dimara, P. A., Purwanto, R. H., and Sunarta, S. (2021). The spatial distribution of sago palm landscape Sentani watershed in Jayapura District, Papua Province,
Indonesia. Biodiversitas Journal of Biological Diversity, 22 (9): 3811-3820.
Ehara, H., Toyoda, Y., and Johnson, D. V. (2018). Sago palm: multiple contributions to food security and sustainable livelihoods. Singapore: Springer Nature.
Global Starch Industry. (2021). Market Report April 2021. (2021, June 13) Global Industry Analysis. Retrieved from
https://www.reportlinker.com/p05485911/GlobalStarchIndustry.html
Gupta, S. D. (2015). Comparative advantage and competitive advantage: an economics perspective and a synthesis. Athens Journal of Business and Economics, 1(1): 9-22.
Johnson, D. (1976) Studies on the seed germination of sago palm (Metroxylon sagu) towards greater advancement of the sago industry in the ’90s. Edited by Ng, T.T., Tie, Y.L. and Kueh, H.S. Proceedings 4th International Sago symposium, Sarawak, Malaysia (1976).
Kainuma, K. (2015). Potential use of sago starch. In The sago palm, the food and environmental challenges of the 21st century, Edited Karl Smith and Society of Sago Palm Studies pp. 289-295. Japan: Kyoto University Press.
Kannan, E. (2018). India’s comparative advantage in export of textiles and apparel products. In A Study of India's Textile Exports and Environmental Regulations, pp. 45-60. Singapore: Springer.
Karim, A. A., Tie, A. P. L., Manan, D. M. A., and Zaidul, I. S. M. (2008). Starch from the sago (Metroxylon sagu) palm tree—properties, prospects, and challenges as a new industrial source for food and other uses. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 7(3): 215-228.
Kathuria, L. M. (2013). Analyzing competitiveness of clothing export sector of India and Bangladesh: Dynamic revealed comparative advantage approach. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal. 23(2): 131-157.
Kathuria, L. M. (2018). Comparative advantages in clothing exports: India faces threat from competing nations. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal. 28(5):518–540.
Khalid, Z., Naseer, M. A. R., Ullah, R., and Khan, S. (2021). Measuring the global trade competitiveness of Pakistan’s cotton crop. Sarhad Journal of Agriculture 37(1): 158-166.
Kim, M. (2019). Export competitiveness of India’s textiles and clothing sector in the United States. Economies, 7(2): 47.
Laporan tahunan Kementerian Perusahaan Perladangan dan Komoditi, MPIC. (2014). (2021) Komoditi penjana kemakmuran. In the Laporan sektor perlandangan dan komoditi, Edited by MPIC, pp. 108-115. Retrieved from https://www.kpk.gov.my/kpk/
Lim, L. W. K., Chung, H. H., and Hussain, H. (2020). Organellar genome copy number variations and integrity across different organs, growth stages, phenotypes and main localities of sago palm (Metroxylon sagu Rottboll) in Sarawak, Malaysia. Gene Reports, 21, 100808.
Mania, E., and Rieber, A. (2019). Product export diversification and sustainable economic growth in developing countries. Structural change and economic dynamics 51(1): 138-151.
Naim, H. M., Yaakub, A. N., and Hamdan, D. A. A. (2016). Commercialization of sago through estate plantation scheme in Sarawak: The way forward. International Journal of Agronomy, 2016.
Monreal-Pérez, J., and Geldres-Weiss, V. V. (2019). A configurational approach to the impact of trade fairs and trade missions on firm export activity. BRQ Business Research Quarterly.
Othman, Z., Hassan, O., and Hashim, K (2015) Physicochemical and thermal properties of gamma-irradiated sago (Metroxylon sagu) starch. Radiation Physical Chemistry 109: 48–53.
Parveez, G. K. A., Elina, H., Loh, S. K., Ong-Abdullah, M., Kamalrudin, M. S., Bidin, Z. M. N. I., ... and Zainab, I. (2020). Oil palm economic performance in Malaysia and R&D progress in 2019. Journal of Oil Palm Research 32(2): 159-190.
Perangkaan Agromakanan Agrofood statistic 2019. (2019). Planted area and production of industrial crops, 2014 – 2019: Roselle (sago palm) planted area and production, Pp. 70. Malaysia: Putrajaya. Retrieved from
https://www.mafi.gov.my/documents/20182/361765/Perangkaan+Agromakanan+2019.pdf/6546231e-053e-4afb-b38d-90bc01913dbd] accessed on March 23, 2021. (in Bilingual, English and Malaysia)
Pratama, G. R., Hardjomidjojo, H., Iskandar, A., and Muhandri, T. (2018). Analisis rantai nilai agroindustri sagu di kabupaten kepulauan meranti. Jurnal Teknologi Industri Pertanian 28(2): 199-209.
Ruzekova, V., Kittova, Z., and Steinhauser, D. (2020). Export Performance as a Measurement of Competitiveness. Journal of Competitiveness, 12(1): 145–160.
Sharma, A., and Dietrich, M. (2007). The structure and composition of India's exports and industrial transformation (1980–2000). International Economic Journal, 21(2), 207-231.
Shepherd, D., and Wiklund, J. (2009). Are we comparing apples with apples or apples with oranges? Appropriateness of knowledge accumulation across growth studies. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(1): 105–123.
The Official Portal of Sarawak Government. (2021). 04 October 2017. RM 20 m Allocated for Sago Development, Smallholding Subsidy –Uggah. The Borneo Post. Retrieved from https://sarawak.gov.my/web/home/news_view/223/9234/
Tie, Y. L. (1987) Performance of sago (Metroxylon sagu) on deep peat: Proceedings of 24th research officer’s conference, pp. 105–118. Malaysia: Sarawak.
UN Comtrade Database. (2021) Trade Data. Sago Import export. Retrieved from https://www.exportgenius.in/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=singa&utm_term=comp&gclid=CjwKCAjwjZmTBhB4EiwAynRmD_mtewdZ-xcolZn51mnI0r_WaoKcTH7LCqUlngYSEG8N3KbhjcGHDhoCSPsQAvD_BwE
Girsang, W. (2014). Socio-economic factors that have influenced the decline of sago consumption in small islands: a case in rural Maluku, Indonesia. South Pacific Study 3(2): 99–116.
Yamamoto, Y. (2011) Starch productivity of sago palm and the related factors. In the Sago for food security, bio-energy, and industry, from research to market: Proceeding of the 10th international sago symposium, pp. 9–15. Bogor: Indonesia.
Zhu, F. (2019). Recent advances in modifications and applications of sago starch. Food Hydrocolloids, 96, 412-423.
(Mohamad et al., 2024)
Mohamad, A. H. H., Ab-Rahim, R., Mohamad, N. N., Echoh, D. U., Hook, J. W. K., & Ling, E. T. T. (2024). Competitiveness Analysis of Malaysian and Indonesian Sago Exports. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 14(1), 2226–2241.
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode