| Publication |
2012.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Turkey's economic ties with neighboring Arab countries have flourished in the past few years. A recently stated pledge to create a regional trade alliance with Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan is likely to trigger a further expansion of economic integration. This paper starts by reviewing trends in Turkey's bilateral trade relations with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan since 2000. Next, it estimates a formal gravity model aiming to project Turkey's trade potential with its neighbors and compare them with the actual flows in 2000-10. It is demonstrated that while Turkey fully realized its bilateral trade potential vis-à-vis Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, actual bilateral trade of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan with Turkey is significantly below the estimated potential.
|