Comparative Analysis of Competitiveness of Shangai Cooperation Organization Members and Turkey

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a regional integration that emerged in the Central Asian region about 20 years ago and has been on the agenda of Turkey for the last few years. In particular, disputes between Turkey-and EU in recent years have led the various segments to express the SCO as a possible alternative to the EU in the future. In this study, the export specialization and competition levels of the SCO region countries and Turkey are analysed in terms of products and Lall (2000) based technological categories. The comparative advantages of the SCO countries and Turkey are calculated using the Balassa index for the 1993-2016 interval. Analysis revealed that Turkey has a comparative advantage in especially low and medium technology and resource based products. It is evident that while the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have comparative advantage in primary and resource-based products, China has over-unity RCA in low and medium technology products, India in primary, resource-based and low-tech products, and Pakistan in low technology and primary products. In other words Turkey and SCO countries possess a similar comparative advantage pattern with respect to the technological classification. Besides, the ratio of advanced technology products with RCA over-unity is almost zero for all the countries in consideration. Additionally, in the case of products in which Turkey has a strong comparative advantage, it is shown that the closest competitors are China, India and Pakistan.