The date world market structure and the target markets for Iran's date export

This research is an endeavor to delineate the structure of world (product trade) market for date, the structure of Iran's date export and its trade partners, and target markets for Iran's date export. Thus, its major parts are as follows: introduction, theoretical and methodological (for both market structure and target markets), world product and trade structure of date, and conclusion and suggestion. According to the findings, the world product structure of date has been an oligopolistic one alone with fluctuations during 1989-2001. A supply – side examination of date world trade reflects a
modification and mitigation in the nature of export vis-à-vis the existence of an oligopolistic structure in import. A comparative study of world trade structure of date indicated that import is more oligopolistic than export. As to the structure of Iran's date export to his trade partners, importers of Iran's date export to his trade partners, importers of Iran's date have not been of the same position: during 1979-88, Iran's bargaining power vis-à-vis other date importers was continuously diminishing during 1989-2001 and particularly during the first development plan, the monopolistic power of those partners/importers declined due to increasing number of date importing countries. It is worth noting that the major Iran's date importing countries oftener-export Iran's date to final consumer markets. In this research 29 countries have been recognized as target markets of Iran's date export and the research is concluded with some
final remarks and policy suggestions.