A Study on the Perceptions and Tendencies of Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Moldovan Societies on Turkey at the Regional Economic Convergence

In the world economy, countries tend to increase their foreign trade for various reasons, especially for meeting their needs, earning foreign exchange income and improving their trade. And the main expectation of this activity is to increase country's welfare. At this point, on the one hand, while economies make efforts in the product supply dimension in order to be ahead of others, on the other hand, they tend to develop their economic relations at the regional level and increase their foreign trade by using regional proximity. Here, geographical proximity is an important factor and societies' views and tendencies towards each other on the economic level are important for benefiting from this geographical proximity. In this article, perceptions and tendencies of Bulgarian, Moldovian, and Ukrainan societies on Turkey (as whole sector/universe and as a single economy) are measured and analyzed via Frequency Analysis, Kruskal-Wallis Test and Mann-Whitney Tests. The analysis shows that, the perceptions and tendencies of region economies are positive in various degrees in developing economic relations with Turkey. Positive perception and tendecies on Turkey are at particularly high levels in Moldova and Ukraine. This positive perception in Moldova should associate with the relative impact of the Gagauz community and the existence of the Free Trade Agreement, which entered into force in 2016, and the right of free movement of citizens of the two countries between two countries that entered into force in 2018. In the study, a differentiation was observed in Bulgaria compared to other countries, albeit at a low level. It can be thought that the difference here is mostly due to the historical negative subconscious of the Bulgarian society and this perception may change with developing of the relations between the two communities and the economies.

Keywords

Regional Economic Convergence, Geographical Proximity, Turkey Perception, External Trade, Bulgaria-Ukraine-Moldova economies and societies, Tendencies in International Economic Relations