Study of Position and Linkage of Agriculture with Other Sectors in Iran’s Economy

Agricultural sector is one of the most important sectors of Iran’s economy which has a great contribution in national production and employment. The current paper aims to determine the position of agricultural sector and its subsectors and their linkage to other sectors in Iran's economy. For this purpose, the last existing input-output table has been used within two economic systems; having 65 and 15 subsectors respectively. The study of economy with 15 subsectors shows that agricultural sector is ranked in the 7th position standing ahead of sectors like power, transportation and coal. In the economy with 65 subsectors, animal husbandry and hennery is ahead of fishery, agronomy and horticulture subsectors. In addition, studying backward and forward linkages shows that agricultural sector lies on the second group i.e. industrial intermediate commodities having both power of dispersion and sensitivity indices above 0.55. Therefore, more attention towards intermediate role of agriculture in national factor contribution and it’s communication with other sectors is suggested for achieving industrial and economic goals of the country.