an investigation of iran export potentials of agricultural products to the oic member countries

this survey is carried out with the aim of investigating iran’s export potentials of agricultural products to member countries of the organization of islamic conference (oic) through use of such appropriate methods as: rca, hs and cosine index. the dates are computed be means of hs data codes in the range of 010000-240000 during 2002-2006. the islamic countries are divided into 3 groups as based on their trade potential namely: 23 countries with low trade potential (0-2.0) 10 countries with middle trade potentials (2.0-6.0) and 10 countries that are of high trade potentials with iran (6.0-1). the results as shown by iran's export cosine index to members of oic indicate that lebanon (with 0.93), cameron, jordan & morocco are at the highest while gabon with zero, algeria & uganda are at the lowest degree of trade, complementarily, with iran. with regard to cosine index, there is a possibility of increase of iran's export to lebanon, cameron, and jordan with these agriculture markets deemed as marketing goals for iran. the results of estimating trade potentials show that a maximum degree of iran's export potential, based on agricultural products comparative advantage to islamic countries, is about 4150.4 million dollars, while only about 764.7 million dollars of it, is accessed. in other words, iran uses only about 18.4% of its agriculture export potential to islamic countries. signing trade agreements, with emphasis on products that benefit from comparative advantage along with high export potential perspective are the main steps in making up fot the islamic trade potential.