An Investigating on Comparative Analysis of Iran’s Agricultural Products Advantages in International Markets Based on Virtual Water and Trade Value

Water scarcity beside the aims for the economic growth and the non-oil export expansion in Iran, are the main cases that made the agricultural sector trade of the country highlighted. Despite the limited water resources the country has been able to produce a variety of crops that make up a significant portion of its economy. In this study we have tried to prioritize the country's 25 agricultural products, using cluster sampling, based on data from 2013 and then for each product, the countries where these products are exported, has been prioritized using the combined virtual water and the dollar value indexes through TOPSIS method. Our research results show that pistachio, potato and tomato ranked first to third for the prioritized exporting products, while most of the market belonged to pistachios. Another Important finding of this research is that according to the combined virtual water and the dollar value indexes, not only Iranian export of the crops with more virtual water was more than their import but their trade balance was negative for the country. For the period of our analysis the import volume of agricultural products was 13 times the volume of export, which shows the serious crisis in the agricultural sector of Iran.

An Investigating on Comparative Analysis of Iran’s Agricultural Products Advantages in International Markets Based on Virtual Water and Trade Value Keywords:

Virtual water , Dollar value , Agricultural products trade , Iranian agricultural products