Lithuania's export specialization according to technological classification

Abstract

In the period of the last decade, Lithuanian economy has undergone numerous structural changes concerning manufacturing and exports. This research study introduces the pattern of Lithuania's export specialization according to technological classification and analyses the changes of trade-based indices over the period of 2006 - 2011. The evaluation of export specialization lays the foundations to the analysis of actual performance of the manufacturing industry, the current exports structure and forecast the trends of transformation into relatively technological intensive and high-skill labour intensive areas. The core aim of the research paper is to reveal the peculiarities of export specialization according to technological classification of commodities of Lithuanian manufacturing industry. It is significant to reveal the importance not only of the hightech, but also of the low-tech manufacturing industries for the country's economy, whereas these industries prevail in the Lithuanian economic structure. This study employs the revealed comparative advantage approach to examine export specialization pattern and trends in the Lithuanian manufacturing industry according to technological classification at product category level. The study presents calculations of the Balassa, RCA and XCI indices to illustrate the solutions of the raised scientific problem.