Estimating Malaysia import demand for meat / Mohd Nur Azam Abdullah Sani

Purpose of this study is to identify factors that influence import demand for meat in Malaysia. Four variables, namely real exchange rate, national income (GOP), lagged import quantity of meat and the dummy variable to take into account the currency pegging policy that has been practiced by Malaysia for the year 1997 to 2005 are identified and tested to determine each variable relationship with Malaysia import demand for meat. Import demand function that has been used by Aysen-Tanyeri-Abur and Parr Rosssonin (1997) paper titled Forecasting Mexican Import Demand for Diary Products has been adapted. In estimating the demand of import for meat in Malaysia, A double-log-linear functional form (Leamer et ai, 1970) is used as a functional for for the study. The secondary data was used and tested using SPSS software package and manual calculation. The result suggested that only two variables namely real exchange rate and country income are found significant towards determining Malaysia import demand for meat while the other two namely lag one year of import quantity and dummy variable (currency pegging policy that has been practiced by Malaysia in 1997 to 2005). The real exchange rate, national income and dummy variable that have been included had a positive relationship with import demand of meat while the lagged one year of import quantity had negative relationship with Malaysian import demand for meat.