AN ANALYSIS OF TURKEY’S EXPORT COMPETETIVENESS ACCORDING TO THE SITC TECHNOLOGY CLASSIFICATION

Year 2017, , 129 - 133, 30.06.2017

Kazim Saricoban , Elif Kaya

https://doi.org/10.17261/Pressacademia.2017.527

Abstract

The main
purpose of this paper is to determine Turkey’s export competitiveness in
respect of SITC Technology Classification. The classification has five
different categories of goods, namely, raw-material-intense, labour-intense,
capital-intense, easy-to-imitate and hard-to-imitate. For analysis, Turkey’s
export data (US dollars) between 1996 and 2015 is used. Revealed Comparative
Advantage (RCA) formula by Bela Balassa (1965) is taken as methodology to
analyse. In compliance with Turkey’s RCAs of the period, it is found out that
Turkey has competitiveness (comparative advantages) on the export of labour
intensive and capital intensive goods while it has competitiveness disadvantage
on the raw-material intense, easy-to-imitate and hard-to-imitate goods which
are research-based goods. It means the goods exported by Turkey is mostly
production of labour intense technology, thus it demonstrates that the labour
factor is the most significant production factors for Turkey. However, Turkey
has disadvantage on easy-to-imitate and hard-to-imitate
researchdevelopment-based goods strengthen by innovation and high value added
products, which are commonly accepted as development indicators for countries. 

Keywords

Export competitiveness, SITC, technology classification, Balassa Index, RCA

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