Revealed Comparative Advantage of South African Wool

The aim of the study is to analyse the comparative advantage of the South African wool using the revealed comparative advantage (RCA), revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) index and relative trade advantage (RTA). The study used trade data from the UN COMTRADE statistics and the ITC Trade Map over the period 2003 to 2022. The foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak data was sourced from the WOAH database. The RCA, RSCA, and RTA show that South Africa has a comparative advantage in wool. Moreover, the South African comparative advantage is exhibiting an increasing trend but the decline in comparative advantage happened after FMD outbreaks. However, in 2022, different to the RCA and RTA, the RSCA show that South Africa has a comparative disadvantage in wool, likely due to FMD outbreaks that triggered trade restriction. The control of FMD is likely to improve South Africa comparative advantage in wool