The Role of Contiguity in Economic Regimentation of the Members of OIC with an Emphasis on Agriculture Section

Contiguity is one of the influencing factors in trading relationships and establishing convergence among different countries. Despite the wide gap between the economic structure of the members of OIC and the trivial degree of economic similarity between them, branching in regional cooperations of these countries can be investigated in terms of the tradable agricultural products. This paper aims at investigating the effect of different branching methods by means of contiguity on the decrease of heterogeneity in the economic structure of members of OIC and on the increase of their economic similarity. If these countries are divided in form of effective subdivisions, especially contingent, the impact of this type of branching increases the degree of economic similarity for establishing a centralized branch. Therefore, performing statistical analysis of the export and import items and the index of economic freedom of these countries and the change of heterogeneity of the economic subdivisions are investigated. Increasing the consistency of the present subdivisions and the potential establishment of more advanced branching in form of a scenario for countries will increase the exchange efficiency of in- branch exchanges among members of OIC.