Abstract: In the Malaysia development plan, the manufacturing sector always aimed to transit to a more high-value, diverse and complex products. To achieve, the comparative advantage of each product in manufacturing needs to be known. Therefore, it is very important for Malaysia to identify the comparative advantage of manufactured goods. This identification could help to increase Malaysia’s export demand in the future. This paper analyses the changes in the comparative advantage of Malaysian manufacturing exports over the period from 1990 to 2013 using Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) index for manufacturing export commodities at the three digit level of the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC). There are 215 commodities that cover all the Malaysia’s manufactured goods. Results reveal that there are minor changes in the patterns of comparative advantage in the Malaysia. Relatively, there are more dynamic changes in low technology product than the primary, resources based, medium technology and high technology product. It shown that Malaysia more concreted on low technology products. These findings are useful for policy consideration to identify product specialization for enhancing competitiveness and promoting economic growth.
Keywords: Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage, Malaysian manufacturing exports, SITC.
Title: An Empirical Analysis of Changes in Comparative Advantage: The Case of Malaysia Manufacturing Exports 1990-2013
Author: Noor Aida Noh, Mukhriz Izraf Azman Aziz, Lim Hock Eam
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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