Analysis of the Interests of Iran's Membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Approach

Iran's membership in Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in addition to political and security gains, can bring broad economic benefits. In this regard, in this research, the economic impacts of decreasing import tariffs of Iran and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have been analyzed. In this study, empirical analysis and quantifying the results have been done regarding Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model, as a computable general equilibrium CGE, and global and multi-regional model. Considering the international nature of analysis, a global model and database were required to achieve the purposes of this study, thus, version 10 of GTAP model and its database (published in 2020) was selected for analysis. In this research, the economic impacts (welfare, production, trade) of Iran's presence in the SCO in various economic sectors were analyzed in two scenarios (50% decrease and 100% decrease in bilateral tariffs). The results indicate that sector "Grains and Crops" in terms of high initial tariff rate, sector "Textiles and Clothing" in terms of high initial tariff rate, sector " Light Manufacturing" in terms of high initial tariff rate and sector " Heavy Manufacturing" due to high trade volume is the significant and influential sectors of Iran's membership in Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It is recommended that tariff rate changes of the mentioned sectors be performed with high accuracy. In general, the results indicate that the variables of welfare, production and trade are increasing in Iran.