Analysis of OECD Countries in Terms of Foreign Trade of a Wood-Based Product Group via Hierarchical Clustering

In today's globalizing world, economic cooperation is of great importance for countries to develop their trade networks. It is possible to consider the OECD as one of such collaborations. The main purpose of this study is to subject the export and import values of OECD countries in terms of plywood, veneered panel and similar laminated wood product group to hierarchical cluster analysis and to classify the countries according to their similarities. The plywood, veneered panel and similar laminated wood export and import data belonging to the years 2013-2023 of the countries subject to the study were provided from Trademap website. The results of the hierarchical cluster analysis indicated that it is possible to divide OECD countries into minimum 2 groups and maximum 4 groups in terms of export, and minimum 2 groups and maximum 5 groups in terms of import. Moreover, hierarchical cluster analysis revealed Türkiye's position among the OECD countries. It has been understood that Türkiye is in the cluster with the highest number of countries, in all clustering options in terms of both the export and import. This result demonstrated that Türkiye is similar to a large number of the OECD countries in terms of foreign trade of the relevant product group. It is possible to state that such studies may be important in terms of both seeing the current situation of the countries and making more effective assessments regarding the products or sectors under research.