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China And Saudi Arabi A Comparative Advantage

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There is a reason countries trade, countries cannot achieve total economic self-sufficiency, most countries need goods and services that other countries have. As a result, countries must trade to get all the goods and services they need. Trade is the exchange of an item for another, nowadays we trade by exchanging money for items. Countries have different distributions of resources, and countries have comparative advantages in the production of certain goods and services, therefore they specialize in the production of that good or service. For example, Canada has to trade with Ecuador or Brazil for coffee beans because of the different climates it’s much easier for countries with a temperate climate to grow coffee beans, therefore Canada exchanges money or other goods or services for the coffee beans. Another scenario is the different allocation of resources such as China and Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has a comparative advantage in the production of oil, so it would be more efficient for China to buy their oil off Saudi Arabia in exchange for money or goods and services. Countries can also specialize in labor intensive industries, for example India have relatively cheap labor, thus other countries open plants in India to make use of the cheap labor. Such as Coca-Cola, an American company opened plants in India to exploit the cheap labor. Even if a country has an absolute advantage in all products it would still gain from trading because if they specialize they’d be more

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