Abstract:

Especially after the Second World War, efforts to liberalize foreign trade have been accelerated amongst countries. These efforts can be divided into two as global and regional efforts. Global efforts have been carried out by various rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Regional efforts, on the other hand, are represented by Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), Customs Unions (CUs) and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), which have been prevailed in recent years. By adopting an "export-led growth model", Turkey has been involved in both the global and regional efforts towards trade liberalization since the 1980s. When viewed from a regional perspective, Turkey has signed FTAs for two main reasons. The first reason has been to find new markets to sell its products and services and to diversify its partnership with different countries in foreign trade. The second and primary reason is Turkey’s obligation to comply with the European Union’s trade policy under the Customs Union. Furthermore, Turkey has signed 37 FTAs until 2018, among which 20 of them are in effect now. 11 of the signed FTAs have been dissolved due to the partnering countries' ascension to EU membership. Although the negotiations are complete, five of these signed FTAs are at the stage of internal approval by the partner countries. In this study, the effects of FTAs on Turkey's foreign trade with its counterparts has been investigated for the 1980-2017 period using bilateral foreign trade data, growth rates of export and import, bilateral concentration index, sector-bilatar trade concentration index (SBT) and revealed comparative advantage index (RCA). The findings have been evaluated in terms of Turkish foreign trade policy.