A Feasibility Study of Promoting Shahid Rajaee Port to a Free Trade-Industrial Port

This research investigates the main factors for the possibility of converting Shahid Rajaee port to a free trade-industrial port. In the first stage of this research, the main factors influencing the formation of a free trade-industrial port have been recognized with the help of primary and secondary data in five distinctive groups. In the second stage, those main factors have been evaluated by the aid of questionnaires which had been distributed among 338 experts of Bandar Abbas city, Shahid Rajaee port and Shahid Bahonar port. 254 of the distributed questionnaires (75% of the total volume of the sample of the research) have been returned. As far as the statistical analyses are concerned to determine the research results, software packages such as SPSS and LISREL have been used. After investigating the various objectives of the ports of the world, the main possible reasons for the failure of free zones of Iran have been presented in the research. Furthermore, Various cases have been analyzed and studied. Finally, it has been found that Shahid Rajaee port is a place with very sufficient potential in order to be converted into a free trade-industrial port.