COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES OF RCEP COUNTRIES IN FOREIGN TRADE AND EXPORT BASED ON STANDARD PRODUCT GROUPS

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to determine the comparative advantages of 15 countries, which are party to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement as a new economic entity in the Asia-Pacific region, in exports on the basis of standard product groups. To do so, calculations were made with the Balassa Index to measure the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) between 2011 and 2020. The products exported by the countries are divided into 13 standard product groups in total according to their factor intensities in production (low, medium, high technology; labour, raw materials, capital intensive; easy-to-imitate and hard-to-imitate, minerals and metals, mineral fuels, agricultural products, textiles, manufacturing). and RCA coefficients are determined for each group separately. According to the findings, RCEP countries (9 countries) are mostly specialised in agricultural product groups. This sector is followed by the manufacturing industry (8 countries) and raw material-intensive goods (7 countries). In the easy-to-imitate and hard-to-imitate groups where research-based goods are included, 7 countries, and in the high technology group, 6 countries have specialised and achieved a comparative advantage in exports. In these research-based groups, especially China, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore and Japan are advantageous.