Full Length Research Paper

Comparison for international competition power between Turkey and European Union (EU)-27: Wheat example

Ferhat Şelli¹, Ayten Zan² and Sabri Er^3*

¹Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Ankara, Turkey.

²Agricultural Economics Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Ankara, Turkey.

³Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Ankara, Turkey.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: sabrier46@yahoo.com.

Accepted 26 March, 2010

   Abstract

The International Competition Power (ICP) for a firm or a country is the indicator of suppression over other firms or countries with which it is competing in domestic and/or international markets. It is, however, bind to demand and supply conditions in domestic and international markets (e.g. technology, productivity, production cost, domestic and international marketing conditions, etc.) and economic policies such as foreign trade, money and financial policies. The main reason of measuring ICP for a firm or country is to show its economic performance (Özağ, 2000). In this study, competitive powers of Turkey and EU-27 for wheat were measured by using Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA Index, Balassa Index) and analyses have been performed by the data based upon wheat export values between Turkey and EU for 2004 - 2008. According to results obtained from this study, the international competitive power of Turkey for international wheat market is less than that of Malta, Portugal, Italy, and Belgium whereas she has more competitive power than other EU countries.

Key words: International competition power, revealed comparative advantage index, Turkey, EU-27.