دکتر ناهید پوررستمی

The present study aimed to investigate the expandability of Iranian export to Brazil using both micro and macro-level approaches. At the micro-level, Iran's export that keeps pace with the Brazilian market were identified based on relevant conventional indicators including normalized revealed comparative advantage index, Cosine index and simple estimation of trade potential. Using HS two-digit data from 2001 to 2018, it is shown that Iran has an export potential to Brazil for some commodities. The impact of major macroeconomic factors on Iran's exports to Brazil is analyzed based on the gravity model and applying the vector error correction method (VECM). In the short-run and the long-run, the results confirm that Iran’s GDP, the joint population size of the two countries, air freight cost have a positive effect while Brazil’s GDP and Linder variable harm Iran’s export to Brazil. The ratio of the official exchange rate of Iran to Brazil has a positive effect in the short-run and a negative effect in the long-run. Brazil's membership in the WTO has a significant positive effect on Iran's exports to Brazil. While the impact of financial and nonfinancial sanctions on Iran's exports to Brazil is not significant. In summary, based on the macro-level indicators, the development of trade relations is logically justified. However, trade capacity between the two countries has not been realized in the given period due to political and international circumstances (not because of the lack of economic justification).

Signing a preferential trade agreement between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) has created a suitable context for the expansion of trade interactions between the countries of this region. With respect to this context, this paper examines food trade potentials between Iran and Russia as two neighbors with significant economies. Product codes are chosen from the 21 categories of the integrated tariff system based on the global definition of food. Data analysis is based on four trade criteria including the Allen cosine measure, the Revealed Comparative Advantage measure, the simple estimate of trade potential measure, and the Drysdale index over the years 2001–2017. These indices illustrate that Iran and Russia have high trade capacities for some items in certain food groups, and that they can facilitate the process of economic integration through reinforcing regional interactions and intra-region trade expansion, while safeguarding national interests and improving national security. The paper concludes that Iran’s food exports to Russia in a particular set of commodity codes enjoy the potential of expansion due to structural similarities between the countries’ food exports, the increasing trend of Iran’s food export potential to Russia, the increasing advantage of these commodity codes in Iran’s export to the world, and the increasing trade expansion opportunities from Iran to Russia.