Adaption of Domestic Product and Export Advantages in Global Market of Dates; Investigating Iran\'s Position Against its Competitors

Iran is known as one of the most important date producing and exporting countries. Given the importance of Iran’s date export and its share of about 14 percent in agricultural exports of the country, this study investigates the comparative advantage of Iran's date export against its large global rivals as well as the long term relation between export advantages of the country and the amounts of production in this country and its competing countries, drawing on Johansen test and Vector Error Correction Estimated (VECM) for the 1996-2008 period. The study result show that shock effects on export comparative advantage is adjusted in almost 1.5 periods, which is shorter than the time periods required for the other countries. As shown by the results, although the Iran’s export advantage has increased following an increase in the country's domestic production in the long run, it was Tunisia which has the highest amount of comparative advantage and also the highest relation between production and export comparative advantage. While Iran has the fifth rated. Iraq, Algeria and United States are the other competitors that have achieved further adjustment between the date production and export comparative advantage, compared with that of Iran. Therefore, given the increase in production can be created in a better long-term export advantage in global markets, attention should be given to the more adaption of Iran’s date domestic production and export advantage against big competitors and specifically Tunisia.
JEL Classification:Q17, N50