Production and ExportComparative Advantage of Iran's Pistachio

According to considerable wight of pistachio in non-oil export of Iran, the production and export advantage of this product are estimated using indices like scale, efficiency, integrated, revealed and symmetric revealed advantage as well as their growth for the period of 1990 – 2005. Results show that scale advantage index for Iran is much higher than its rivals while Syria and Turkey had the highest efficiency advantage and highest efficiency advantage growth, respectively. Highest integrated advantage and highest growth of this index belonged to Iran and Italy, respectively. Despite Iran's advantage in pistachio export, its growth is negative for the studying period (- 44.05 percent) while competitors had positive growth. A decline, for any reason, in exporting advantage of Iran's pistachio would lead an increase in rival's advantages and their market share. Statistics show that the policies carried out during the Third Development Program were successful in improving production efficiency and penetrating into world markets. Policy making in the direction of reducing production costs, improving commodity quality and using suitable processing method will cause sustainable and successful presence in world markets.