Impact of Public-Private Partnership for Trade: Free Zones of Iran

In an effort to achieve economic growth and development, to eliminate or minimize the traditional barriers of trade, trade facilitation (TF), and increase international trade, free trade zones in Iran were founded. In this regard, part of the solution to increasing countries' international trade is provided by Public- Private Partnerships. Since trade facilitation includes a relationship between the Public and Private sectors, this type of partnership is especially important in trade facilitation. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the relationship of the factors that have the greatest impact on TF-oriented PPPs in the free zones and these factors derive from the theory of PPPs. Qualitative data was collected focusing on private, public, and academic sector professionals involved in free zones and trade by a researcher-made questionnaire. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) strategy was utilized to look at the model and test the research hypotheses. Of the 5-hypothesis proposed by this study, four hypotheses were confirmed and one was rejected. The results have shown that the variables of private sector abilities, the micro-environment factors, and the macro-environment factors, in that arrange, have the foremost impact on TF-oriented PPPs and TF-oriented PPPs have a strong relationship to trade facilitation. Therefore, the use of TF-oriented PPPs in free zones can have a positive effect on trade facilitation, and the development of TF dimensions will also lead to trade facilitation in Iran's free zones.