A comparison of sectoral competitiveness for Turkey and BRICS

As the world become more globalized, new economic powers came into effect. These new economic powers need some integration in order to have a balanced competitiveness within the world economic share. One of the most recognized formation within this regard is called BRICS. It should be considered that the BRICS countries became very fortunate regarding the competition with BRICS countries during the global economic crises in 2008, which they have found opportunity to close the gap between them and the more developed countries. This economic crises started in USA and effected the most of the countries in the world. Since Turkey also shows similar futures with BRICS countries, investigating and comparing the competitiveness of the both became a considerable issue of recent economic researches. In order to measure the competitiveness between BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa) and Turkey, we used the formulation developed by Bela Balassa named Revealed Comperative Advantage (RCA). The data needed were taken from Turkish Statistical Organisation (TUIK) and United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE) for the years between 1988 and 2014. We also discussed if the BRICS are really in cooperation with each other. This study concluded that the BRICS countries seemed not capable of forming a real formation in both economic and political perspective. Therefore, these countries should change their directions by reviewing their economic development policies and it is advised to deepen their economic strategies in order to have more competitive economies.