دراسة لأهم العوامل الاقتصادية و الإنتاجية المؤثرة على الميزة النسبية و الميزة التنافسية لمحصول القطن المصري

Abstract EN

Cotton is considered as one of the most important strategic crops because it is one of the mainstays of the economic structure, it is still distinguished in the world markets as the best quality cotton in the world for textiles and luxury clothing, which gives Egypt a special relative advantage in the global market for its entry into many basic industries related to this field Such as spinning, weaving and garments as well as the manufacture of oils and concentrated fodder.

Cotton exports are also a major source of foreign exchange that contributed in economic finance and social development plans.

Cotton cultivation faced many problems that led to farmer retreat from cultivating it as a result of its low prices and its tendency to cultivate other more valuable crops and economic returns, especially with the high cost of living, which affected its cultivated area, which was to 2 million feddans in the sixties of the last century and decreased to be 374,000 feddans in 2010.

Likewise, the state's role in marketing production requirements and the output of the cotton crop, especially after the government implemented the complete liberalization of the internal trade of cotton in 1996, which resulted in not taking into account the global changes in the field of production, trade and manufacturing technology, which led to the loss of comparative advantage of cotton it occupied between Other agricultural crops, whether internal or external, and the consequent decline in the commercial role of Egyptian cotton locally and internationally, which affected Egypt's position in the global markets.

Accordingly, the study aimed to assess the competitiveness of Egypt's exports of cotton in foreign markets.

In addition to studying the impact of changes in the most important economic and productive factors affecting both the competitive and comparative advantages of the Egyptian cotton, also study the risks resulting from fluctuations in the prices of inputs and outputs and productivity per feddan by measuring the extent of bearing the competitive and relative advantages of cotton.

Therefore, the competitive advantage and relative advantage of the Egyptian cotton were measured according to China and Fleming (1999) by using the Benefit-cost ratio (BCR) method that helps in arranging activities or determining the most desirable activities and is the best in measurement using the financial and economic analysis of benefits to costs.

The study found the following most important result as the average of competitive advantage for Egyptian cotton during the period (2010-2019) was about 4.35.

Also average of the relative advantage of Egyptian cotton during the previous period was about 2.72.