A Comparative Analysis of Export Competitiveness of Top Five Cotton Exporting Countries

Abstract

The current study has examined the cotton export competitiveness of China, USA, India, Pakistan and Vietnam by using a set of Revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indices namely Balassa index(RCA), Revealed symmetric comparative advantage index(RSCA) and Vollrath index (RCA#) vis-a-vis global trade. Further, the study also aims at assessing export competitiveness of these countries and determining its dynamics in global trade with the world. The data were collected from the International Trade Center (ITC) UN-COMTRADE Statistics for the selected economies from 2003-17.The findings of the current study illustrate that China, USA, India and Pakistan had a comparative and competitive advantage from 2003-17, while Vietnam had a comparative disadvantage from 2003-07 and comparative advantage from 2008-17 in the cotton sector. Moreover, the results also indicate that Pakistan had a strong comparative advantage in the cotton sector as compared to other four economies.Likewise, these results highlight that Pakistan should lay emphasis on quality of cotton, Infrastructure, reduction in the cost of production, use of modern technology, investment in agricultural sector and marketing in the global market to enhance the export volume of cotton for foreign exchange earnings.