Ranking of National and Regional Attractiveness Indicators of Private Sector Investment Opportunities Market in Iran's

With the dramatic changes in the world, due to advances in technology, globalization of markets, companies and industrial areas have faced new conditions of political economy. Therefore, deciding on the right market is one of the key decisions for the companies in achieving success, and has direct impact on their profitability. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to rank the attractiveness of national and regional markets of private sector investment opportunities in industrial parks and areas of Iran, using the AHP method.

In terms of orientation, the study lies in the category of applied research and in terms of nature, it lies in the category of exploratory research. It is also considered qualitative in terms of data certainty. Sampling was applied using the judgmental and purposeful method. The statistical population of the present study includes all experts, manages of industrial companies and university professors, from which 16 interviews were conducted and analyzed.

After analyzing the interviews and prioritizing the results using the AHP method, 15 market attractiveness indicators were identified, including geographical distance, marketing growth rate, market size, rate and speed of the market growth, profit gaining opportunity in the market, intensity of competition, market stability, ease of entering the market (threat of new-comers), bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute goods, economic factors, environmental factors, socio-cultural factors, political factors and legal factors.

By reviewing and summarizing the market attractiveness indicators that have been proposed in the previous researches, a set of indicators were provided to evaluate the potential of markets for investment.