Determining Revealed Comparative Advantage and Target Markets for Iranʹs Stone Fruits

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This study investigated the export status of stone fruits in Iran during 1997 to 2010.Export trends and revealed comparative advantage of indices, namely, RevealedComparative Advantage (RCA), Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA),and Relative Export Advantage (RXA) as well as Trade Mapping (TM) were investigatedfor cherries, plums, peaches, and apricots. Target markets for these products wereranked using numerical taxonomies. The results showed that Iran had exportʹscomparative advantage for stone fruits only in 2007 and 2010. But, this index had apositive growth for the stone fruits in those years, indicating an increasing trend in theexport status of these products. Trade mapping analysis indicates that although theexport market for these products has declined during the period studied, Iran has taken agreater share of the market and is among the winner groups. The principal exportmarkets in decreasing order were found to be Germany, The UK, France, Italy, theNetherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Switzerland, the UAE, and Afghanistan.