Competitiveness of Major Industrial Export Products in Fars Province (in Persian)

The first part of this article tries to study the dynamic competitiveness of the industrial export products in Fars province. Industry sector data of the province within 2001-2009, shift share analysis indicators and the trade plan were examined to materialize the purpose of the first part of the study. According to the findings of the study, Fars province has been practicing the export of those industrial products that lack competitive advantage or the ones suffering from too frequent fluctuating competitive advantage. Moreover, 91.11 percent of the industrial products of the province were supplied to downgrading markets, out of which 36.27 percent of the exports were in winners group and the remaining 58.84 percent went to the losers. Therefore, it is pivotal to identify the export markets and the factors determining the competitive advantage. In the second part of this study, the products enjoying competitive advantage were identified using three indicators, namely “revealed competitive advantage”, “coefficient of variation”, “Cumulative Export Experience Index” as well as through the “Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS)” based on 4 digit HS codes during the period. Such products make up 12 percent of the province’s industrial exports. Eventually, through the use of the simple export potential capacity method, Fars province’s export potential capacity was calculated for the leading industrial export codes in accordance to the trade partners of each code in the province. The results of the calculation demonstrate that export destinations of leading industrial export codes were not appropriate and the exports of these codes are just limited to some specific markets.