Determining Revealed Comparative Advantage and Target Markets for Iran's Stone Fruits

This study investigated the export status of stone fruits in iran during 1997 to 2010. export trends and revealed comparative advantage of indices, namely, revealed comparative advantage (rca), revealed symmetric comparative advantage (rsca), and relative export advantage (rxa) as well as trade mapping (tm) were investigated for cherries, plums, peaches, and apricots. target markets for these products were ranked using numerical taxonomies. the results showed that iran had export's comparative advantage for stone fruits only in 2007 and 2010. but, this index had a positive growth for the stone fruits in those years, indicating an increasing trend in the export status of these products. trade mapping analysis indicates that although the export market for these products has declined during the period studied, iran has taken a greater share of the market and is among the winner groups. the principal export markets in decreasing order were found to be germany, the uk, france, italy, the netherlands, russia, saudi arabia, bahrain, switzerland, the uae, and afghanistan.