Analysis of the relationship between export and import in Turkish manufacturing industry sub-sectors: 1996-2018 period

In recent years, with the effect of neoliberal policies and globalization, the borders between countries have disappeared, and there have been transformations in many areas in the world economy with the developments in technology, communication and logistics. Production and foreign trade structures of countries are among the areas affected by this transformation. In the new economic order, the need for the stages of the production process to be physically close to each other or to supply the inputs used in production from local markets has disappeared. The goal of cost minimization has become dominant in determining preferences in production processes. In this direction, especially after 1990, the volume of international trade expanded rapidly. As the areas where the inputs used in production can be supplied have expanded on a global scale, more intermediate goods have been traded and imported parts and equipment have begun to be used more. This situation is also observed in Turkey and the path followed by export and import data over the years bears a great similarity. For this reason, there is an impression that there is a close relationship between export and import. In this direction, in this study, the relationship between exports and imports in Turkish manufacturing industry sub-sectors is tried to be revealed with the help of panel data econometrics. For this, export and import data covering the period 1996 to 2018 belonging to 20 sub-sectors in the manufacturing industry are used. According to the findings obtained from the tests, it is calculated that a %1 increase in exports increases imports by %0.73. This ratio reveals the level of the relationship between exports and imports in the Turkish manufacturing industry.