Competition power of Turkeys tomato export and comparison with Balkan countries

Adem Aksoy and Haluk Caglar Kaymak

Abstract: Turkey is one of the most important tomato producers in the world. Turkey has delivered 7.0% of world’s entire tomato production in 2017. Determining the level of export competitiveness of tomato in Turkey and comparing it with that of Balkan Countries (Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Moldavia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia) for 2001-2017 periods, is the major aim of this study. The competitiveness level of tomato export was calculated using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index and Trade Balance Index (TBI). The data of this study was provided from International Trade Centre (INTRACEN) database. The results revealed that the average RCA and TBI scores for Turkey were 4.87 and 1.00, respectively. These findings demonstrated that despite strong comparative advantage, Turkey is still a net exporter country in tomato export. According to the average RCA scores, Albania and Macedonia have strong, Moldavia medium, and Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia have no comparative advantage in tomato export.

Keywords: Balkan countries; Revealed Comparative Advantage Index; tomato export; Trade Balance Index; Turkey

Date published: 2021-04-15