The Competitiveness of the member customs union in the textile and clothing industry

International competitiveness is an effort in which countries gain domain power over other countries by using price/cost and non-price factors for goods and services. Towards that end, while countries manage their competitive advantage with respect to globalisation, some countries try to establish their competitive advantage by establishing regional alliances. Among other stages of integration Customs Union could be counted as a preliminary stage to increase the international competitiveness. This dissertation aims to measure price competitive advantage of European Unions and Turkey in the trade of Textile and Clothing Industries. The study is based on the competitiveness model used by the OECD. Within this model framework, import, export and total price competitiveness of European Union countries has been tested with respect to Turkey. This study shows us not only the importance of price/cost competitiveness but also possible policy recommendations. Another striking result has been that, competitive advantage of Turkish textile and clothing industry shows nonprice but price/cost advantages.KEYWORDS: Competitiveness, National Competitiveness, Price Competitiveness, Import Price Competitiveness, Export Price Competitiveness, Textile and Clothing Industry. JEL:F13,F14,L67