THE EXPORT PERFORMANCE OF THE CEFTA COUNTRIES - AN ARDL MODEL-BASED EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Radovan Kovačević

University of Belgrade, Faculty of Economics and Business, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

The paper investigates the export performance of the CEFTA 2006 countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina - BiH, Montenegro, Kosovo* (UNMIK, according to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244), Moldova, North Macedonia and Serbia)), using the ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) model. By applying the F-Bound ARDL test for the period from 2000 to 2022, the existence of a long-term equilibrium relationship between the real exports of the CEFTA 2006 members and the selected variables was determined, the results indicating differences in the significance of certain variables in the long run. Export performance mainly depends on the degree of trade openness (for most members), then the real effective exchange rate (BiH, Kosovo*, Serbia), while the net inflow of FDI (except Serbia) and the domestic bank loans granted to the private sector are less important (with the exception of Kosovo*).

Keywords: export, exchange rate, foreign direct investments, ARDL, trade openness, co-integration

JEL Classification: C22, F10, F14, F21

Economic Horizons, 2025, 27(1), 95-110. Published online April 8^th 2025

doi:10.5937/ekonhor2502099K

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