Iran's Export Opportunities in the Iraqi Market: Integration of Decision Support Model and Approaches of Product Space and Economic Complexity

Currently, there is no proper match between Iraq's import needs and the variety of Iran's export goods to that country.According to the statistics of the International Trade Center, more than half of the country's import needs are related to mechanical and electrical machinery and transportation equipment ($16.8 billion) with a share of about 30%, and agricultural products and food industries ($11.4 billion dollar) with a share of about 20%, which Iran has allocated about 3.4% and 16.5% of the total needs of the Iraqi market in the mentioned sectors, respectively. The present article with the aim of identifying Iran's export opportunities to Iraq and prioritizing them, has used integrating a decision support model and the approaches of economic complexity and product space. A number of 627 export opportunities have been identified based on the four-digit commodity codes HS and prioritized divided into ten main commodity sections. The results show that Iran is present in half of the products in the Iraqi market with a relative advantage; So that Iran's export power to the Iraqi market (based on the revealed relative advantage) is at a higher level than the competitors of that market. Among the 590 products (according to four-digit HS) that Iran exports to the Iraqi market with a stronger advantage than other competitors, it has a comparative advantage in only 123 cases at the international level; Also, among the 351 commodity groups that have relatively high complexity, only 35 items have a comparative advantage at the international level. In addition, among Iran's export commodity groups, only 55 groups have been provided with the capabilities and capabilities needed for production in the country's economy at a level beyond 50%.