Determination of product diversity in china s export sectors in 2001-2017 through clustering analysis

Abstract

Purpose- It is to evaluate the export-oriented general economic structure of China, which alone meets 20% of world exports today, and to reveal the changes and cluster differences in the export products group of China before and after its membership to the WTO. Methodology- It is to reveal and interpret the change in China's exports before and after becoming a member of the WTO by sectoral cluster analysis method. Findings- When China's total export from 1992 to 2017 and the export changes in 25 different sectors are examined, it is observed that there is a significant increase in all sectors. Conclusion- Statistically significant differences were found for each sector before and after China’s WTO membership. This shows that China's membership is meaningful. In addition, after becoming a member of the WTO, while the agricultural raw material sector was the least specialized and the lowest competitive sector in Chinese exports, the sector with the highest competitive power was its mechanical electronic devices and machinery. In other words, after the WTO membership, it is seen that China's total exports increased approximately 10 times during 2001.