Assessment and Determination of Bilateral Trade Capacity between Iran and Turkey

Foreign trade expansion plays an important role in economic growth and development. Since Iran’s single-product economy is facing tight sanctions, among trading partners, Turkey benefits from special place, and political independence in international relations because of its large population, rising per capita income, high economic growth rate, geographical and cultural proximity to Iran. Many opportunities and substantial capacities have been established for expanding foreign trade between these two countries. To do this, it is necessary to determine the maximum export capacity of Iran to Turkey and whether this capacity has actually been deployed and realized or not. The next question is what the bases of Iran’s export development to Turkey are, and the goods which should be focused on to develop trading. Therefore, the aim of this study was to estimate the maximum export capacity of Iran to Turkey and to determine the commodities with the highest export capacity. The Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index, the Cosine Index, and the General Model of the gravity model were used to evaluate Iran’s export potential and to determine commodities in which Iran has export advantage. Iran’s export potential to Turkey was investigated in various years and in different commodity groups by comparing the rate of export volume of each commodity to total volume of its import by Turkey. Research findings indicated that the highest Iranian export potential value to Turkey was $9,339 million, and just 7.2% of that ($669 million) has been realized. Also, 11 commodity groups formed more than 66% of Iranian potential exports to Turkey. Among them, ‘mineral products’ with $2,730 million, ‘plastics and natural rubber and artifacts made from them’ with 1,185 million, ‘common metals and artifacts made from them’ with $918 million, and ‘products of the chemical industry and its related industries’ with $879 million were respectively the four commodity groups with the highest export potential. JEL Classification: F14]