ارزيابي استراتژي ملي و منطقه اي توسعه ي صنعت پتروشيمي كشور

Assessing National and Regional Development Strategy of Petrochemical Industry in Iran

Economic development thought has passed three periods from 1950s. "Industrial recruitment (targeting)" and "cost competition" were prevailing up to the beginning of 1990s. By accelerating the globalization process, regions tried to renew their industries and use new market opportunities. Therefore, the last period is based on "regional competitiveness" that focuses on improving innovation and entrepreneurship in regions. A glance to the industrial development model of Iran reveals the fact that this pattern is defined by industrial recruitment strategy and import substitution policy. The combination of these strategy and policy is, in fact, a zero-sum game that led to win the central regions and loose the border regions in Iran. What stands a region as a looser or gainer is the bargaining power of native managers, Parliament members and even citizens of that region. We can interpret wide economic gap between regions in Iran by this process. Petrochemical Industry, as a noteworthy sector by national and regional managers and policymakers, is also developed and located based on industrial recruitment strategy and bargaining process. Using different analytical methods in this paper shows the fact that this strategy is inefficient and canʹt boost development factors. We need to transform our strategy from development of upstream petrochemical industries to downstream industries, targeting to complete product chains. JEL Classification: R58, 025, H77, H54, C67, C49