Iranian Journal of Trade Studies
Year:2002 | Volume:6 | Issue:24|Papers Count:9

The need to secure food stuff for the increasing population of the country on the one hand, and attaining to self-reliance in production of strategic products on the other hand, have led the authorities in Islamic Republic of Iran to, while re-evaluating the existing measures for securing and supplying food stuff, identify and determine the factors which affect the imports and production of such items. This new initiative would facilitate planning for the enhancement of the efficiency of measures for securing food stuff and its supply to the market. In this paper attempts have been made to determine the impacts of different policies on agriculture sector in general and the factors which affect the supply and imports of agricultural products in particular. The results of the paper demonstrate that the policies adopted for the domestic production and import of those items, have been faced and associated with distortions and instabilities. Furthermore these policies, contrary to what has been initially intended , have proved to be ineffective in protecting the sector. In this respect it has to be noted that several policies, such as , pricing, tariff and non-tariff barriers, foreign exchange and trade policies, in effect, have produced adverse effects on producers of such products. In fact these policies have not only failed to produce protectionary results, but on the contrary, have acted as implicit tax on the sector. These results are therefore indicative of the fact that the infrastructure of the sector is confronted with serious shortcomings. The recommendation of the paper is to the effect that, if the policy decisions are meant to secure more food stuff, through enhancing domestic production , and protection of the economy against fluctuations in world agriculture market, the effective, serious , prudent and meaningful protection measures should be adopted and implemented.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the degree of poverty in Iran and how it changed over time during the implementation of a stabilisation and adjustment programme started in 1989. It does this by documenting overall poverty levels and poverty within subgroups, using the micro-level data set of household expenditure survey conducted by the Statistical Centre of Iran (SCI) in 1989 and 1994. The former year was the initial year of the Islamic Republics first five-year plan, and the latter was the year following the plans final year. This paper is organised as follows. Section 1 shortly describes the data sets. Section 2 deals with establishing a proper poverty line for Iran. This section also introduces a new equivalence scale for adjusting differences in needs. Section 3 compares poverty in 1989 and 1994 using first stochastic dominance check. Section 4 provides higher order dominance checks. Section 5 estimates the level of, and changes in, Poverty in Iran using some scalar poverty measures. Section 6 investigates the sensitivity of poverty estimates to the choice of the price index. The paper ends with a conclusion list . We have found an increase in all poverty measures in urban and rural areas and the country as whole except a fall in the distribution sensitive measure for urban areas during the adjustment policy, 1989-1994. In other words, in rural area of Iran the impact of adjustment policy on the welfare of the poor was negative whereas in urban area of Iran, in spite of an increase in incidence of poverty (%4), the poorest people benefited from distributional change during the first five-year plan (1989-1993). In short, apart from an empirical work on poverty in Iran, this paper also provides a new equivalence scale and highlights the magnitude of the adjustment factors for measuring poverty. z

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of buyers export credit on the expansion of non-oil exports in Iran. The methodology used is based on field studies and for evaluating the degree of the impact of buyers credit on the expansion of non-oil exports of the country, the Cochran approach is utilized. For this purpose a sample composed of 200 persons out of 3500 individuals (non-oil exporters population) has been chosen. The main findings of the paper demonstrate that granting buyers credit is the most important and at the same time effective leverage for implementing the export leap target as outlined in the third five-year development plan of Iran. Resorting to this device would also considerably enhance the volume of non-oil exports to target markets. Moreover, this would also enrich the outcome of efforts for export leap which is the main focus of the third development plan of the country. Results of the paper also indicate that by attaching priority to granting buyers credit, the impacts of internal factors, which influence the non-oil exports volume of the country become less than the impact of external factors and this in turn would warrant that following granting such credits, measures should be adopted to improve the former

The stockpiling or storage of commodities plays a very important role in commercial and marketing services. This process by managing the time intervals between production and consumption, brings new synergy for goods and yields expected profits for producers. Such process by diminishing the wastes and increasing opportunity cost for products in different periods of time leads to credibility and incentive in market factors. It also amounts to prudent and efficient decision making in the field of production, consumption and distribution. Furthermore, this process by bringing necessary and proper adjustments in consumption and price level leads to food and economic security. The purpose of this paper is , by taking into account the special characteristics of perishable agricultural products, to review and analyse the factors which determine the level and magnitude of storage. To accomplish the task, first the theoretical background and literature are briefly reviewed and a simple model is introduced and at the next stage the model is extended to include other concepts such as rational expectations, uncertainty and cost per unit of storage

The prevailing conditions in the industry sector of the country is indicative of the fact that the present structure of the sector is not capable of playing its rightful and expected key role in the process of the economic development of Iran. Therefore all efforts have to be made to make this sector more efficient, and this wouldnt be materialized unless, the industrial capabilities and potentials are known and identified at country level in general and at provinces level in particular. These efforts would undoubtedly provide proper and suitable grounds for the expansion of non-oil exports and hence would lead to economic growth and sustainable development of the country. In this paper the industrial potentials and capabilities in the Isfahan province are determined and to this end by utilizing the multiple indexes the Factor Analysis and Numerical Taxonomy approach have been employed for the period 1373 to 1376. The results demonstrate that the structure of the industry in Isfahan province is highly diversified. Furthermore in this structure emphasis and concentrations have been put on a vast range of consumption, capital intensive and intermediate industries, rather than on the priority industries and industries which enjoy comparative advantage. These results are also indicative of the fact that the industrial structure of the province is not conducing to efficient allocation of resources and does not satisfy the economic efficiency requirements.

In the past the issue of food security was dealt only at national and international level and in this respect the supply of food items was the main focus. In 1986, however, during the course of international conference on nutrition, the World Bank provided a new definition for food security. This definition provides that food security is based on three main and basic elements or components. These elements are: (1) stability in the supply of (2) Access to (3) availably of food items. The first component relates to the stable food supply .The second component denotes to the existence of physical and economical resources for securing the food items and the third component relates to sufficient supply of good quality items (domestic products + net import + change in inventory). In this paper by drawing on above mentioned concepts, attempts have been made to analyse the role of production and legal and illegal import of rice in the food security of Iranian households. For this purpose, first the production and trade of rice in the country is reviewed. Then attempts would be made to clarify the availability of the sufficient supply of rice and also access to good quality rice for households. Finally the volume of illicit import of rice would also be estimated. The main findings of the paper show that while population is increasing, nevertheless the production trend of rice is stable and unchanged .The trend in legal imported rice is also stable while, the illicit or smuggled import of rice shows increasing trend (from 420000 tons in 1375 to 582000 tons in 1378). As far as access to food items is concerned the results are indicative that during the period 1375-1378 the role of domestically produced rice in securing the food security requirements of the country has been diminished and on the contrary the role of imported rice has shown increasing trend. Another result of the paper is to the effect that 50 percent of urban population and 70 percent of rural inhabitants are consuming less than what has been recommended.

The growth of population, the weaknesses in sound and long term economic planning and the lack of comprehensive plans for manpower and human resources training, are among the most important factors which have given rise to employment to evolve itself as a crisis and a social and economic requirement of the country. On the other hand the recent revolution which has occurred in the realm of information technology and dissemination of information and their integration in each other has faced the employment issue with a new range of challenges and opportunities, which in turn warrants adopting new and proper strategy for entering into the 21st century era. In this respect the self-entrepreneurship strategy manifests itself as the most important and efficient strategy for meeting the challenges on the one hand and benefiting from the opportunities on the other hand. In this paper, labor force, human being, structure and information technology are introduced as the main factors in a self-entrepreneurship strategy. Attempts have also been made to provide new meanings for these concepts in the framework of a self-entrepreneur economy. Furthermore by employing Delphi method in three phases, and seeking the views of experts, the obstacles in the way of applying the strategy to Iranian economy have been identified and to that effect ways and means for its application have been proposed. The recommendations are mainly of managerial nature. References have also been made to issues such as insurance, training, tax and retirement.

The growth of population, the weaknesses in sound and long term economic planning and the lack of comprehensive plans for manpower and human resources training, are among the most important factors which have given rise to employment to evolve itself as a crisis and a social and economic requirement of the country. On the other hand the recent revolution which has occurred in the realm of information technology and dissemination of information and their integration in each other has faced the employment issue with a new range of challenges and opportunities, which in turn warrants adopting new and proper strategy for entering into the 21st century era. In this respect the self-entrepreneurship strategy manifests itself as the most important and efficient strategy for meeting the challenges on the one hand and benefiting from the opportunities on the other hand. In this paper, labor force, human being, structure and information technology are introduced as the main factors in a self-entrepreneurship strategy. Attempts have also been made to provide new meanings for these concepts in the framework of a self-entrepreneur economy. Furthermore by employing Delphi method in three phases, and seeking the views of experts, the obstacles in the way of applying the strategy to Iranian economy have been identified and to that effect ways and means for its application have been proposed. The recommendations are mainly of managerial nature. References have also been made to issues such as insurance, training, tax and retirement.