ABSTRACT
Signing the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with EU, Georgia seeks to fully utilize export potential of the Georgian products. Thus the competitive advantages of Georgian products should be carefully identified. Several studies identified different Georgian agro sectors as having competitive advantages, mainly these are the potential advantages. For identification of the competitive advantages of various Georgian agro products we used the methodology determining their competitiveness based on the major characteristics of the target market and the existing export conditions of the agro products. On the first stage there have been identified product groups, (based on the ITC 4 digit trade statistics) demonstrating good export performance, as well as product groups (based on the same 4 digit trade statistics) of the EU import market demonstrating high economic performance. The next step was to establish a competitiveness index. The index of competitiveness was calculated by combining the growth of the EU imports (in per cent multiplied by five times), the share of non-EU exporters by EU imports (in per cent multiplied five times) and their qualitative rating. Based on the research findings next stage was to define entry strategies and entry modes for the EU market. Markets have been carefully investigated based on their size and growth rate. All calculations have been done based on the ITC 4 digit trade statistics.
Keywords
Competitive advantage, export potential, export competitiveness index, market growth, market potential, market growth rate, market entry strategy and entry mode, EU Agri product market conditions, EU import market potential.