Identifying the export opportunities of Iran's agricultural products in the framework of the decision support model

Identifying and determining target markets is one of the most important ways to diversify non-oil exports and reach global markets. The expansion of export markets is one of the important strategies of the country, considering the decrease in revenues from oil exports and its extreme fluctuations. The agricultural sector has made a significant contribution to the country's non-oil exports in recent years. However, the lack of accurate identification of potential export markets has faced challenges in the export development of this sector. Based on this, the aim of this study is to identify and rank the potential target markets of Iran's export agricultural products in such a way that the potential markets for export products in this sector can be identified and prioritized. The statistical sample of this research is all the countries that had commercial exchanges with Iran in the field of agricultural products during the study period, and the information they needed was available in the World Bank database.

The data used to calculate the indicators includes the period from 2002 to 2018. In order to identify and rank the market-target products, the decision support model and the implementation of a four-step screening process using Excel and Access software and programming in the SQL software environment were used.

The findings of the research show that there are realistic export opportunities related to nine products (1) other nuts (2) dates, figs, (3) grapes (4) melons, watermelons (5) apples and fresh pears. (6) ginger, saffron, turmeric, thyme and other spices (except pepper) (7) sugary sweets containing cocoa, including white chocolate (8) bread, sweets, cakes, biscuits and (9) other prepared or preserved vegetables but not frozen.