International competitiveness of Turkish agriculture: a case for horticultural products

This paper defines competitiveness as the ability of a country to increase its share of domestic and export markets, especially when they have a comparative advantage in a product and can produce at a lower opportunity cost. This paper briefly covers the theoretical information on this topic and provides empirical evidence of how domestic resource cost (DRC) can determine international competitiveness. A country is said to have a comparative advantage in the production of tradable goods if that country's production is efficient; if not, then it has a comparative disadvantage. The concept of comparative advantage has two meanings: The first definition states that efficiency of production is compared to two or more trading nations, and when the nations with the lowest opportunity costs are relatively more efficient, they have a comparative advantage. The other meaning of comparative advantage refers to the efficiency of different kinds of production within the domestic economy, which are compared in terms of earnings or savings of a unit of foreign exchange. Turkey seems to have a comparative advantage in plant products that do not exhibit economies of scale and are relatively labour-intensive, i.e. fruits and vegetables eliminating border and non-tariff barriers to trade in agriculture would allow both sides to exploit their comparative advantages better.