Prioritization and Optimal Allocation of Agricultural Bank Credit in Separate Provinces of Iran

Bank Keshavarzi (BK) is considered as the major financial entity in financing agricultural sector. Due to limitations in accessible resources, objective of this study is prioritizing and optimal allocating of agricultural credits in Iran. For this purpose, the relevant indices of investment priorities are defined and calculated. Then, by utilizing Entropy technique, the weights of mentioned indices are determined and by the use of Topsis method, the agricultural subsectors prioritized in provinces separately. Eventually, the goal programming is used for the optimum allocation of credits. The results showed that in most provinces, investment priorities are as follows, respectively: farming and horticulture, livestock and poultry, fisheries and forestry. In general, according to the goal programming results, the credit disbursement in BK is not optimal; by assuming the optimality, about 56.9 percent of such credits will be allocated to farming and horticulture, 39.1 percent for livestock and poultry, 2.7 percent and 1.3 percent for fisheries and forestry sub sectors, respectively.