An Investigation of Turkey’s Competitiveness on Different Products Groups in Automotive Sector via Revealed Comparative Advantage Index

Competitive power in international trade is one of the most desirable targets of countries in today’s globalized world. Thus, the importance of international competitiveness that has been a fundamental issue since the rise of the international economic theory is increasing for various products. Within this scope, it is so prominent to analyze product groups in which countries have comparative advantages from past to present in order to detect the problems and to determine the existing situation. In this context, with reference to the importance of countries in the existing global structure, investigation of comparative advantage of Turkey in the production of motor vehicles constitutes the subject of this study. Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index, which has been suggested by Liesner first and then developed by Balassa, is used to determine the comparative advantage of Turkey in the production of motor vehicles from 1989 to 2016. Findings indicate that new competitors exist in automotive sector and that the competitiveness of Iran and the Eastern European countries will be determinant in the medium- and long-term position of the Turkish automotive industry in global markets.