Abstract:

TThe purpose of this study was to determine and compare the trade competitiveness of Turkish, Polish and Czech automotive industries which has, since the year 2000, significant shares in their manufacturing sectors in terms of production and exports. In measuring the country’s international competitiveness, we have utilised two different Revealed Comparative Advantage indices (RCA) developed by both Balassa and Vollrath. In our analyses, trade data for the period 2001-2019, which are compiled with respect to the Harmonized System (HS4) at the 4-digit level, have been used. The result of RCA2 tests for the automotive sector shows that Poland since 2004, Turkey and Czechia since 2001 all obtained competitive power, while the result of RCA1 tests indicates that Czechia has a relatively more competitive power than Turkey and Poland. In addition, from the result of the sub-sectoral RCA1 tests one can conclude that Turkey has a more competitive power than Czechia and Poland in the exports of passenger and goods carrying vehicles that equipped with the mid-level technologies, while Czechia has a medium level competitive power, but still more than Turkey and Poland in the exports of private cars and their equipments and parts that are equipped with the high technologies. On the other hand, looking at the RCA2 test results one can possibly argue that Turkey has a more competitive power than Czechia and Poland in the exports of goods carrying vehicles, while Czechia has a more competitive power than Turkey and Poland in the exports of private cars.

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