Comparative Advantage and Trade Specialization of East Asian Countries : Do East Asian Countries Specialize on Product Groups with High Comparative Advantage ?

This paper analyzes whether East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) specialize on product groups with high comparative advantage. We use the data on the 3-digit SITC Revision 2 for 237 product groups published by the UN-COMTRADE. Firstly, we calculate the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) index to know the product groups with high comparative advantage from each the East Asian countries. Secondly, we calculate the export share to know the trade specialization of product groups from each the East Asian countries. Thirdly, we compare between the product groups included in top-twenty SITC of comparative advantage with top-twenty SITC of trade specialization from each the East Asian countries. This paper concludes that throughout the study periods of 1995, 2005, and 2015, East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) specialize on product groups with low comparative advantage. It was also found that product classification dominating the comparative advantage and trade specialization of East Asian countries was the technology intensive products classification. JEL classification: F10, F14, F17


Introduction
Comparative advantage is the advantage that a country obtains in specializing to produce products that have relatively lower prices than in other countries.Comparative advantage is usually used as an indicator to measure the performance and competitiveness of international trade.In comparative advantage condition, a country in a competitive condition will specialize in producing and exporting goods.Minondo (2011) found that products of comparative advantage of a country play a very important role in explaining the level of export diversification.While Laursen (1998) found that RSCA is the best measurement in measuring comparative advantage.
In international trade theory, comparative advantage is an important concept in explaining the trade patterns.The concept of comparative advantage was introduced by David Ricardo (1817) with the rigid assumptions then known as the Ricardian model.In modern international trade theory, these assumptions are made more realistic.According to traditional international trade theory, a country will export goods that have comparative advantage and will import goods that have no comparative advantage (comparative disadvantage).
The high economic development in East Asia shows the ability of production from East Asian countries in producing manufactured products and capability in developing industrial production.In this study, the countries analyzed are the East Asian countries.Based on the World Bank classification and geographically region includes Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea (Republic of Korea) and Singapore.The selection of East Asian countries in this study is based on several reasons.First, the East Asian countries have succeeded in creating a very high export and excellent leading exporters such as Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore.The spectacular export of these countries mostly based on government support in planning the economy and promoting the sectors of export industry as a pillar of the economy.Second, the successes of Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore in changing the economic structure from unskilled-labor intensive production to skilled-labor intensive production and eventually became capital-intensive production, so these countries became pioneers in shifting the export focus from primary commodities into manufactured products.Third, trade expansion for the Asian region is geographically concentrated in the East Asia especially in Japan and China.Fourth, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore are examples of successful countries in export promotion strategies as well as the earliest countries adopted export promotion strategy.Figure 1 shows the trend of comparative advantage of East Asian countries during the period 1995-2015.China in the period 1995-2015 is a country that has the highest comparative advantage compared to Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore.Hong Kong is a country that has a trend of comparative advantage that continues to decline from the period 1996-2015 and the lowest comparative advantage in the period 2004-2015.In the period 1995-1999, comparative advantage of Hong Kong was higher than South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia.While Japan in 1995-2015 has a trend of comparative advantage that continues to increase.The trend of Indonesia's comparative advantage in the period 1995-1998 was the lowest but it had experienced a very sharp and significant increase in 1998-2000 and then in 2000-2015 tended to be flat but still high from South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong.While South Korea and Singapore during the period 1995-2015 have a trend of comparative advantage that tends to flat.The trend of South Korea's comparative advantage is higher than the trend of Singapore's comparative advantage.
In this study, the authors want to know the export products that become a comparative advantage and trade specialization of the East Asian countries.This study investigates whether East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) specialize on product groups with high comparative advantage.The rest of this paper is organized as follows.The second section describes the literature review about the comparative advantage and trade specialization.The third section describes the methodology that consists of data and analytical tools that are used.The fourth section discusses the results and analysis of comparative advantage, trade specialization, and comparison between the product groups included in top-twenty SITC of comparative advantage with top-twenty SITC of trade specialization from each the East Asian countries, then the fifth section discusses the conclusions of this research.

Literature Review
As a solution to the weakness of absolute advantage theory of Adam Smith, David Ricardo (1817) introduced the comparative advantage theory.Not all countries have an absolute advantage or absolute advantage is owned by only one country.Comparative advantage theory of David Ricardo mentions that the country will export products that have a comparative advantage.Comparative advantage is the advantage that a country gets in specializing to produce products that have a relatively lower price than in other country.The principle of comparative advantage states that a country in a competitive condition will specialize in producing and exporting goods at the lowest relative cost.
Previous studies of comparative advantage and trade specialization are research conducted by Balassa (1977) which analyzes the patterns of comparative advantage of manufactured products from major industrialized countries (United States, Canada, European Common Market, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Japan) using RCA.In his research, Balassa (1977) states that the increased in specialization and diversification of manufactured exports depends on a variety of factors namely the size of the domestic market, the rate of technological development, natural resources, and the impact of economic integration.The results of the analysis show that the industrialized countries tend to have high export diversification.The presence of the European Common Market contributes to the increased diversification of manufacturing exports of its member countries.Balassa and Noland (1989) examined the comparative advantages of Japan and the United States for 57 primary products and 167 manufactured products using the RCA index.Testing is done by calculating the relative export share index and net export ratio.The results show that between 1967 and 1985 there was an increase in Japanese specialization on human-capital intensive products while United States increased specialization in natural-resource intensive products.Research conducted by Widodo (2009) is to examine the changes of dynamic comparative advantage of ASEAN countries, China, Republic of Korea, and Japan (ASEAN+3) using RSCA index.The results show that there is a change in the pattern of comparative advantage of ASEAN+3 countries.The increase in overall comparative advantage is supported by the high increase in comparative advantage of product groups that had a low comparative advantage in the past.The pattern of comparative advantage of ASEAN countries is similar to the pattern of Japan's comparative advantage.The catching-up process is supported by changes in the pattern of comparative advantages in both ASEAN and Japan in terms of Japan's foreign direct investment (FDI) in ASEAN countries.Then the study conducted by Phuong (2010) is to analyze the comparative advantages of Vietnam and its changes using RCA.Implemented since the implementation of state reform program that is starting in 1986.The data used in this study is International Economics Databank (IEDB) and United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD).The results show that Vietnam's largest comparative advantage is based on the ownership of labor and natural resources.Therefore, that Vietnam is able to develop its exports with the condition of this wealth.

Data
The author uses international trade data published by United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN-COMTRADE) on 3-digit SITC revised 2 for 237 product groups.In this research, there are 2 product groups which are not included in the analysis because the data are not available, namely SITC 675 (Hoop and strip of iron or steel, hot-rolled or cold-rolled) and SITC 911 (Postal packages not classified according to kind).The countries analyzed in this study consist of six countries that refer to the World Bank classification and geographically located in the East Asia region i.e.Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore.

RSCA and Export Share
In this study, following Laursen (1998) and Widodo (2009), the authors use the RSCA (Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage) index to measure the comparative advantage of East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore).The RSCA index has a range -1 ≤ RSCA ≤ 1 which will give a symmetrical value.An export commodity of a country that has the RSCA value greater than zero, then these commodities have comparative advantage.If the value of RSCA is less than zero, then the country has no comparative advantage for the commodity.In this study, the authors use the RCA index from Vollrath (1991) and the RSCA index from Laursen (1998) with the following formula: (1) Following Hinloopen and Marrewijk (2005), the level of export specialization is the export share which calculating the percentage of export value of a product group (SITC) of a country to the total export value of that country.
Export Share = (X ij /X Tj ) x 100 (3) where RCA ij denotes revealed comparative advantage for group of products (SITC) i from country j; RSCA ij denotes revealed symmetric comparative advantage for group of products (SITC) i from country j; X ij represents exports for group of products (SITC) i from country j; X Tj represents total exports from country j; X iw represents the world exports for group of products (SITC) i; and X Tw represents the world total exports.
Higher value of export share indicate that the product group is produced in greater proportion than other product groups.The higher the export share value of a product group the higher the trade specialization of that product group in a country compared to other product groups in that country.
Then to find out whether a country specializes in a product groups with high comparative advantage or specializes in a product groups with low comparative advantage is examined by comparing between the product groups included in the top-twenty SITC of comparative advantage with the top-twenty SITC of export share of the country concerned.
SkRSCA j,t is the skewness coefficient of RSCA variable (Karl Person formula) for country j at time t.

Comparative Advantage of East Asian Countries
Comparative advantage of East Asian countries is determined by calculating the RSCA index value of each East Asian country (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) using UN-Comtrade data on 3-digit SITC Revision 2 for 237 product groups in 1995, 2005 and 2015.The higher of RSCA index value from a product group, the higher of comparative advantage from that product group in a country compared to the other product groups in that country.After calculating the RSCA index value of 237 SITC, then it is ranked based on the value of the RSCA index and selected twenty SITC with the highest RSCA value as the comparative advantage products of the country concerned.To simplify the interpretation of the results of the comparative advantage analysis, the authors classified 237 SITC into 6 product classifications based on the classification of Empirical Trade Analysis (ETA), see Appendix A. Table 1-6 shows the changes in comparative advantage of each East Asian country that shown through products that include on top-twenty SITC of comparative advantages in 1995, 2005, and 2015 using the UN-Comtrade data on 3-digit SITC Revision 2 for 237 product groups.424, 232, 322, 431, 245, 091, 075, 267, 072, 289, 036, 071, 287, 037, 251, and341. From 2005 to 2015 there was also a change in rank position and product group composition where there were 2 new SITC that emerged in 2015 i.e.SITC 289, 037 and 1 SITC lost from top-twenty comparative advantage in 2005 that is SITC 074.So during the period 1995-2015, although the products classification of Indonesia's comparative advantage did not change, but there has been an increase in the number of SITC, changes in rank position and changes in product group composition.In 1995, 10 SITC were SITC 848, 658, 831, 842, 666, 844, 843, 652, 851, and 894. In 2005, 10 SITC were SITC 848, 666, 658, 894, 831, 851, 845, 847, 842, and 844. In 2015, it increased to 14 SITC namely SITC 666, 812, 658, 653, 845, 652, 831, 851, 894, 847, 655, 843, 842, and 848. From 1995  Source: UN-COMTRADE 3-digit SITC Revision 2 Authors' calculations.

Trade Specialization of East Asian Countries
In this study, referring to Hinloopen and Marrewijk (2005), the trade specialization of East Asian countries determined by calculating the value of export shares from each the East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore).The higher the export share value of a product group, the higher the trade specialization of that product group in a country compared to other product groups in that country.
The export share is calculated by calculating the percentage of a product group (SITC) of a country on the total export value of the country concerned.Higher export share values indicate that the product group is produced in greater proportion than other product groups.After calculating the export share value of 237 SITC, then ranked based on the value of the export share and selected twenty SITC with the highest export share value to serve as trade specialization products of the country concerned.Similar with the determination of comparative advantage, to simplify the interpretation of the results of trade specialization analysis, the authors classified 237 SITC into 6 classification of products based on the classification of ETA.Based on table 7, in 1995 the Indonesian trade specialization was dominated by product groups classified in the primary products of 9 SITC i.e.SITC 333, 341, 232, 287, 334, 036, 424, 322, and 071. In 2005, the trade specialization of Indonesia is still dominated by primary products with the number of SITC declining to 7 SITC namely SITC 341,333,424,287,322,232,and 334.Then in 2015, Indonesian trade specialization remains dominated by product groups in primary products classification i.e.SITC 424,322,341,333,287,232,431,and 251 (8 SITC).From 1995 to 2005 there was a change in rank position and product group composition where there were 2 missing SITC of the top-twenty trade specializations of 1995 i.e.SITC 036 and 071.Then from 2005 to 2015 also changed in rank position and product group composition where there are 2 new SITC, which appear in 2015, i.e.SITC 431, 251 and 1 SITC lost from the top-twenty trade specialization of Indonesia in 2005 that is SITC 334.SITC 843,851,894,842,845,652,848,846,831,658,653,and 651 (12 SITC) 778, 713, 772, 728, 749, 874, 736, and 741. Then in 2005, as many as 13 SITC, i.e.SITC 776,778,728,764,759,772,713,874,749,723,736,583 and 884.In 2015 is dominated by 13 SITC i.e.SITC 776, 728, 778, 874, 772, 749, 713, 723, 759, 583, 736, 764, and598. From 1995 to 2005 there was a change in rank position and product group composition where there were 3 new SITC that emerged in 2005 that were SITC 723, 583, 884 and 2 SITC lost from top-twenty trade specialization in 1995 that is SITC 752 and 741.Then from 2005 to 2015 also change the position of rank and product group composition where there is 1 new SITC that emerged in 2015 that is SITC 598 and 1 SITC lost from top-twenty of trade specialization in 2005 that is SITC 884.During the period 1995, 2005, and 2015 the first rank of Japan's trade specialization is occupied by the same product group i.e.SITC 781 (Passenger motor vehicles (excluding buses)).SITC 764,776,752,871,583,759,778,511,582,728,775,513 and 772.Then in 2015, South Korea's trade specialization is still dominated by 14 SITC of technology intensive products classification i.e.SITC 776, 764, 871, 778, 583, 772, 728, 511, 582, 749, 759, 713, 752 and 741. From 1995 SITC 776,759,752,764,772,778,515,583,723,541,749,514,874,511,582 and 598.Then in 2015, the Singapore's trade specialization is still dominated by technology intensive products classification with an increasing number of SITC to 17 SITC namely SITC 776, 764, 752, 759, 583, 541, 874, , 778, 792, 772, 723, 714, 598, 514, 515, and 749. From 1995

Do East Asian Countries Specialize in Product Groups with High Comparative Advantage?
During the period 1995, 2005, and 2015, based on the top-twenty of Indonesia's comparative advantages and trade specialization, the comparative advantages and trade specialization of Indonesia are on the classification of primary products but not all of the product groups that constitute Indonesia's comparative advantage is as Indonesia's trade specialization.In 1995, the proportion of Indonesian trade specialization which is a comparative advantage is 65%, from 20 SITC of high comparative advantage only 13 SITC are used as trade specialization of Indonesia.In 2005, Indonesia did not specialize in products with high comparative advantages due to the proportion of product groups in Indonesian trade specialization which is a comparative advantage of Indonesia only 35%, from 20 SITC of Indonesia comparative advantage is only 7 SITC become the Indonesian's trade specialization namely SITC 341,424,287,322,232,634,651.Then in 2015 Indonesia still does not specialize in product groups with high comparative advantage, where the proportion of Indonesian trade specialization which is a comparative advantage of Indonesia is only 50% i.e.only 10 SITC Indonesia's trade specialization with high comparative advantage, that is SITC 424, 322, 341, 851, 287, 232, 634, 651, 431, 658, 894, 851, 845, 752, 871, and 842 while for 2015 were SITC 812, 845, 831, 851, 894, 752, 843, and 764.
Based on the top-twenty Japan's comparative advantages and trade specialization, during the 1995, 2005, and 2015, the comparative advantages and trade specialization of Japan is on the technology intensive products classification.Despite the comparative advantages and trade specialization of Japan in the classification of technology, intensive products but not all of the product groups that become comparative advantages become the trade specialization.In 1995 and 2005, from 20 SITC with high comparative advantages, only 10 SITC were used as Japan's trade specializations.In 2015 Japan did not specialize in products with high comparative advantages because the proportion of Japan product group which is a comparative advantage is only 30% from 20 SITC of comparative advantage only 6 SITC become as trade specialization, that is SITC 736, 728, 781, 723, 674, and 713.
From the results of Hong Kong's comparative advantage analysis and trade specialization for the period of 1995 and 2005 is on the unskilled-labor intensive products classification but not all product groups of comparative advantages become as trade specialization, where from 20 SITC comparative advantage only 11 SITC, which serve as trade specialization in 1995, and 13 SITC in 2005.In 2015, there was a change in the classification of comparative advantages and trade specialization from unskilled-labor intensive products to technology intensive products but it is the same as 1995 and 2005, that in 2015 not all of the product groups on comparative advantage become the trade specialization, from 20 SITC comparative advantage only 12 SITC which serve as a Hong Kong's trade specialization.
South Korea in 1995 has not fully specialized in product groups with high comparative advantages, in which South Korea's comparative advantage in 1995 was dominated by human-capital intensive products but South Korea's trade specialization in the same year was dominated by technology intensive products and human-capital intensive products.The product group that became a comparative advantage of South Korea is not all of them as trade specialization, where from 20 SITC with high comparative advantages, only 10 SITC are used as South Korea's trade specialization.In 2005 and 2015, although South Korea's comparative advantage and trade specialization were in the classification of technology intensive products but not all of the comparative advantage were made as trade specialization, where from 20 SITC comparative advantages in 2005 only 8 SITC (40%) of South Korea's trade specialization has a high comparative advantage, namely SITC 793,871,511,513,764,776,674,582 and by 2015 only 9 SITC (45%) of South Korean trade specialization with high comparative advantages i.e.SITC 793,871,511,674,776,672,778,582,and 583.
Based on the top-twenty comparative advantage and trade specialization of Singapore, in 1995 the product group that became Singapore's comparative advantage was not used as a trade specialization, where Singapore's comparative advantage was dominated by primary products but Singapore's trade specialization was dominated by technology intensive products.In 2005 and 2015, although Singapore's comparative advantages and trade specialization were in the classification of technology intensive products but not all of the product groups that  The positive value of skewness on RSCA coefficient indicates that a country specializes more on products that have low comparative advantages.While the negative value of RSCA skewness coefficient indicates that a country specializes more on products with high comparative advantage (Widodo, 2010).From Figure 3 above, it is shown that all East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) have positive values of skewness coefficient, indicating that Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore specialize in product groups with low comparative advantages.

Conclusions
During the 1995, 2005, and 2015 study periods, East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) specialize in products with low comparative advantages where not all product groups that become comparative advantages serve as trade specialization.Throughout the study period, it was found that technology intensive products are a classification of product groups that dominate comparative advantage and trade specialization of East Asian countries.This result is also supported by a positive value of skewness, indicating that during the period 1995-2015, Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore specialize in product groups with low comparative advantages.
became comparative advantages were made as trade specializations.During the period of 1995, 2005, and 2015, the proportion of Singapore's trade specialization, which is Singapore's comparative advantage, is only 55% of the 20 SITC with high comparative advantage, only 11 SITC are made as Singapore's trade specialization.Source: UN-COMTRADE 3-digit SITC Revision 2. Authors' calculation.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Trends in Skewness of Comparative Advantages from East Asian Countries, 1995-2015 If the top-twenty SITC of comparative advantages of a country are all become trade specialization from that country, it indicates that the country specializes in a product group that has a high comparative advantage.If the top-twenty SITC of comparative advantages of a country are not all (in part) become trade specialization, it indicates that the country specializes in product group which comparative advantage is low.
The skewness value of RSCA from a country at time t is negative, indicates that the country is more specialized in products with high comparative advantage.In contrast, the RSCA skewness coefficient of a country at time t is positive, indicates that the country is more specialized in products with low comparative advantage.The RSCA skewness formula (Karl Person) is:  

Table 2 .
Top-Twenty SITC of China Comparative Advantage 1995, 2005, and 2015 Source: UN-COMTRADE 3-digit SITC Revision 2 Authors' calculations.When viewed from the top-twenty of China's comparative advantage (table 2) in 1995, 2005, and 2015, China's comparative advantage is dominated by a group of products included in the unskilled-labor intensive products classification.

Table 3 .
to 2005 there was a change in the rank position and product group composition where 2 new SITC emerged in 2005 were SITC 845, 847 and 2 SITC lost from the top-twenty comparative advantages of 1995 i.e.SITC 843, 652.Changes in rank position and product group composition also occurred in 2005 to 2015, where there were 5 new SITC emerging in 2015 that SITC 812, 653, 652, 655, 843 and 1 SITC were missing from the top-twenty comparative advantage of 2005 i.e.SITC 844.So for 20 years, although there is a change in rank position and product group composition but China's comparative advantage product group is still dominated by the unskilled-labor intensive products classification, which differ only the type of product group.Top-Twenty SITC of Japan ComparativeAdvantage 1995Advantage  , 2005Advantage  , and 2015

Table 4 .
722.Then in 2015 the number of SITC decreased to 11 SIT, 2005, and 2015, 712,  584, 736, 728, 511, 884, 723, 737, 713, and 774.From 1995 to 2005there was a change in rank position and product group composition, there were 3 new SITC that emerged in 2005 i.e.SITC 723, 511, 722 and 3 SITC lost from top-twenty comparative advantage of 1995, namely SITC 871, 751, 776.In 2015 as well as in 2005, Japan's comparative advantage also experienced the dynamics of changes in rank position and product group composition, where there were 2 new SITC that emerged in 2015 i.e.SITC 584, 774 and 5 SITC missing from the top-twenty comparative advantages of 2005 i.e.SITC 881, 711, 778, 724, 722.So for 20 years, Japan did not experience a change in product classification of comparative advantage but changed its rank position and product group composition as well as decreasing the number of SITC where in 2015, there were 4 SITC classification of primary products did not exist in top-twenty comparative advantage of Japan in 1995.Top-Twenty SITC of Hong Kong Comparative Advantage 1995, 2005, and 2015 Source: UN-COMTRADE 3-digit SITC Revision 2 Authors' calculations.According to table 4, the top-twenty comparative advantages of Hong Kong in 1995 are dominated with unskilled-labor intensive products by11 SITC i.e.SITC 831, 894, 851, 845, 655, 843, 844, 652, 846, 848, and  842.In 2005 is still dominated by 10 SITC unskilled-labor intensive products i.e.SITC 831, 894, 655, 845, 652,  843, 851, 656, 651, and 846.While in 2015, Hong Kong's comparative advantage is dominated by 8 SITC of technology intensive products i.e.SITC 759, 776, 764, 771, 883, 772, 881 and 884.From 1995 to 2005there was a change in rank position and product group composition, where 2 new SITC emerged in 2005 were SITC 656, 651 and 3 SITC lost from the top-twenty comparative advantages of 1995 i.e.SITC 844, 848, 842.From 2005 to 2015 there was a change in product classification of comparative advantage from unskilled-labor intensive products to technology intensive products.

Table 5
reports the top-twenty comparative advantages of South Korea in 1995 dominated by product groups included in human-capital intensive products classification i.e.SITC 691, 786, 763, 761, 677, 696 and 625.While in 2005, the comparative advantage of South Korea experienced a change that is dominated by product groups included in the classification of technology intensive products of 8 SITC that isSITC 871, 511, 513, 764,  711, 776, 724, and 582.Then in 2015, the comparative advantage of South Korea is dominated by technology intensive products with SITC increasing to 10 SITC i.e.SITC 871, 711, 511, 776, 513, 724, 778, 582, 583 and  884.From 1995 to 2005there was a change in the products classification of comparative advantage from human-capital intensive products to technology intensive products.From 2005 to 2015, South Korea's comparative advantage remained unchanged but there was a change of rank position and product group composition where there were 3 new SITC emerging in 2015 i.e.SITC 778, 583, 884 and 1 SITC missing from top-twenty comparative advantages of 2005 is SITC 764.

Table 7 .
Table 7-12 shows the top-twenty SITC of East Asian trade specialization in 1995, 2005, and 2015 using the UN-Comtrade data on 3-digit SITC Revision 2 for 237 product groups.Top-Twenty SITC of Indonesia Trade Specialization1995, 2005, and 2015

Table 9 .
. In 2005, China's trade specialization was dominated by technology intensive, 2005, and 20150 SITC namelySITC 752, 764, 759,  776, 778, 775, 871, 893, 772, and 771.Later in 2015, China's trade specialization is still dominated by technology intensive products as much as 10 SITC i.e.SITC 752, 764, 759, 778, 772, 775, 893, 759, 871, and  749.From 1995 to 2005there was a change of trade specialization from unskilled-labor intensive products to technology intensive products.Then from 2005 to 2015, China's trade specialization has not changed, but only changing in composition of product groups where there are 2 new SITC emerging in 2015 i.e.SITC 759, 749 and 2 SITC lost from the top-twenty trade specialization of 2005 i.e.SITC 776, 771.For the period 2005 and 2015, the rank on 1-3 of China's trade specializations are occupied by the same product groups i.e.SITC 752,  764, and 759.Top-Twenty SITC of Japan Trade Specialization 1995, 2005, and 2015When viewed from the top-twenty of Japan's trade specializations(table 9) for 1995, 2005, and 2015, the Japan's trade specialization is dominated by technology intensive products classification.In 1995 Japan's trade specialization was dominated by 12 SITC of technology intensive products, namelySITC 776, 764, 752, 759,

Table 12 .
to 2005, there was a change in product classification of trade specialization from human-capital intensive products to technology intensive products.From 2005 to 2015, the product classification remains fixed but there is a change in rank position and product group composition where there are 3 new SITC that emerged in 2015 i.e.SITC 749, 713, 741 and 2 SITC lost from top-twenty of trade specialization of 2005 i.e.SITC 775, and 513.Top-Twenty SITC of Singapore Trade Specialization1995, 2005, and 2015 to 2005, there was a change of rank position and product group composition where 5 new SITC emerged in 2005 were SITC 541, 514, 511, 582, 598 and 3 SITC are missing from top-twenty of trade specialization in 1995 that is SITC 716, 771, 728.Then from 2005 to 2015 also change in position of rank and product group composition where there are 3 new SITC that appear in 2015 that is SITC 728, 792, 714 and 2 SITC which missing from the top-twenty of trade specializations in 2005 i.e.SITC 511 and 582.
251.China's comparative advantages and trade specialization in 1995 was in unskilled-labor intensive products classification, but the product group that China's comparative advantage has not all become into trade specialization, the proportion of China's comparative advantage that is China's trade specialization is 45%, from 20 SITC with high comparative advantage, only 9 SITC are used as China's trade specialization.For 2005 and 2015, the product group that became China's comparative advantage was not used as a Chinese trade specialization, where China's comparative advantages in 2005 and 2015 were dominated by unskilled-labor intensive products but Chinese trade specialization in the same year was dominated by technology intensive products.In 2005 and 2015, the proportion of China's trade specialization which is a comparative advantage is 40%, from 20 SITCs in Chinese trade specialization only 8 SITC with high comparative advantages.For 2005 were SITC 763,