Determining Comparative Advantage and Recognizing Target Markets of Iran's Hand-woven Carpet

Carpet is the most important goods for non-oil export in Iran. More than 25 percent of non-oil export income has come from carpet since 40 years ago. It has a high share in the value of non-oil exports in our country. Accordingly, the goal of this research is studying Iran’s hand-woven carpet export and recognizing goal markets and obstacles of being present in such markets. Doing this, firstly, comparative advantage of Iran’s carpet has been calculated during the years 2000-2005 using RCA, RSCA and indices and then it has been tried to find the potential export markets by identifying Iran’s carpet importer countries and prioritizing them using numerical taxonomy method. The results show that in the field of hand-woven carpet, Iran has a comparative advantage for exporting. But downward trend of comparative advantage of hand-woven carpet during the studied years suggests weakening of competitive position of this product in the world. In other words, downward trend of comparative advantage index of hand-woven carpet indicates the gradual loss of our country’s expertise in carpet export. Prioritizing of the target markets show that the main export markets for Iran’s hand-woven carpet are: America, UAE, Japan and Germany respectively.