A review on Turkey's competitiveness with G20 countries in the forest products industry

Forest products industry; While contributing to the development of the Turkish economy by giving export surplus in terms of many sub-sectors, it is an important sector that also supports social and regional development. For 2019, the size of the sector in the Turkish furniture and wood-based board industry exceeded 10 billion dollars in terms of US dollars, 3.5 billion dollars were exported, a total of one million people were employed, 500 thousand of whom were directly employed, approximately %2.4 of the added value created in the Turkish manufacturing industry. It is known that of them are exported to more than 200 countries. In this study, it was aimed to reveal the competitive power of the Turkish Forest Products Industry. As a research method, Donges et al. (1982), the comparative export performance index was used, the model data was handled to include the year 2001-2019, and the competitiveness of Turkey with 18 other G20 member countries (excluding the EU) was analyzed by making comparisons within the scope of six sub-sectors. Within the framework of the analysis findings obtained by taking the average of the last five years; Turkey is comparatively superior to Mexico, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, India, Great Britain, Argentina, USA, Italy, Germany and France in the export of wood-based products such as Particleboard, MDF and laminate flooring. On the other hand, it can be said that there is no competitive power against Russia, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, China and Brazil. In the paper and pulp products, there is a competitive advantage against many countries, but a competitive advantage has been determined in the industrial roundwood export, in the timber products category and in the wood-charcoal-pellet export against the limited countries in limited periods. In the results of working; It has been suggested to focus on strategies focused on quality, efficiency, R&D and innovation for sustainable competitive advantage in the Turkish Forest Products Industry.