Mehmet Ali DEMİR

The main aim of this study is to determine what countries are advantageous in the potential commercial expansion in 21st century between Turkey and Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, called the Turkic Republics, with which Turkey has common ethnic and cultural values, and to find out whether bilateral commerce has intensified in comparison to the rest of the world. In this regard, in order to determine the route of the bilateral commercial relations between Turkey and Turkic Republics, commercial intensity index, export intensity index and import intensity index have been applied using data about foreign trade between 2010-2019. It has been concluded that during this period, trade relations between Turkey and Turkic Republics were higher than the intensity index value 1, and trade was carried out very intensely. Similarly, the obtained export intensity and import intensity indeces values were higher than 1. When average export intensity and average import intensity values of the same period are taken into consideration, it has been concluded that Turkey has been advantageous in comparison to other countries (except for Uzbekistan) and that the structure of bilateral commercial activities was in favour of Turkey. When the globalisation activities, which have intensified recently, and the potential of these countries with common historical and cultural values are taken into account, Turkey and Turkic countries are expected to make more effort to increase the intensity of bilateral commercial activities.

Keywords: Turkey, Turkic Republics, Commercial Intensity Index, Export Intensity Index, Import Intensity Index