Jean-Raphael Chaponnière Marc Lautier Export catching-up in the Mediterranean Countries

The weakness : The Textile-Clothing industrie in the MC

The problem : Chinese Competition Chinese potential competition in the Textiles-Clothing Ind. To compare export structures of countries « i » and « j », we use their export vectors (structures) E ik et E jk (k=1,...,n ). The “ distance ” between these vectors (structures) is given by the cosinus of their angle; varying from 0 (absolute difference) à 1 (absolute similitude). 2 Chinese export structures are calculated: Direct (China) : Structure of EU Import; with quota Undirect (Chine *) : structure of Japan Imports; quota-free Textiles-Clothing Export Structures calculated for 236 products.

The solution :Increase the Quality of Manufacturing Exports How to measure the « quality » of an export structure ? 1)ECU : The indicator of Export Catching-Up 2) Results 3) Analysis of manufacturing export niches

1) ECU : Method The idea : A manufacturing export is more advanced the higher the average income of its exporter. ECU measures the gap between the overall quality of a country’s exports and the quality level of the most advanced country.

ECU is calculated in three steps : (i)We calculate a product quality index for each product as the weighted average of the GDP per capita of the exporting countries. We term it GDPproduct i : GDPproduct i = Σ (GDP per capita country j * Xij/Xiw) (With Xij, country “j” exports of product “i”, and Xiw the total (world) exports of product “i”.)

(ii) We computes a ECU value for each country “j” : ECUj value = Σ (GDPproduct i * Xij/Xtj) (With Xtj the total exports of country “j”.) (iii) We obtain ECU country j by calculating an index that ranks each country between 0 and 1 : ECU country j = [ECUj value – Min ECU value] / [Max ECU value – Min ECU value] (With “Min ECU value” as the lowest level of ECU value in the world, and “Max ECU value” as the highest.)

Implications ECU is an indicator of the “quality” gap between two countries export structures (The larger the gap with the leading country, the more backward the export structure) In the long run, ECU changes measures the speed of the catching up process of the country’s exports.

2) Results

Regional trends

South-Korea 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 0%5%10%15%20%25%30%35% ECU Manuf Export / GDP G6 : South-Korea, Export intensity and Exports Quality

« Quantity » and « Quality » of Exports diverge in the MC NICs 2Tunisia

3) Share of Export Niches in Manufacturing exports

Exports Niches Dynamic

Niches Export Growth : Consolidation of the existing niches, no creation of new niches. Concentrated on: - a limited number of products (50% from 2 products in Morocco, from 5 products in Tunisia). - The UE market. Where the demand is not dynamic

No change  No (trade) future ! Export growth, but low quality of exports No process of export diversification Increase of Asian Competition in the EU