Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Abstract

Evidences indicate that the  Islamic Republic of Iran  enjoy a reasonable amount of comparative advantage  in their processed foodstuff to export  to the neighboring countries,  particularly to  the  U.A.E Despite this fact, the country's processed food  exporters have  failed to  gain advantage of this opportunity. Present paper is aimed at elucidating some outstanding reasons for this problem. Three groups of questionaires were  prepared in two languages  (Persian and English) to  ask  the  views of the  members of a sample of importers, sellers,  and  consumers  of these products  of Iran  it  the  U.A..E.  Non - parametric statistical methods such as the Mann  -  Whitney, the  Kruskal - Wallis, and Friedman  were  used to test the hypotheses  of this reseach.  Quite  a few reasons  were found  to account for the  Iranian exporter's meager success  in placing the  above products in the hands  of their Arab  consumers, who regarded  the quality  of these  products  as high.  However, a lack  of knowledge of these exporters  of the modern  exporting concepts or otherwise  their lack of willingness to rely on experts in  this field to handle the relevant issues for them were found to be the most important impediment to the export  of these foodstuff  to the  U. A E. To offer some  suggestions  for  the  promotion  of these  products  of Iran  in the U.A.E. AHP  model was  used to  rank consumers, responses to  the question "What do they  take  into account in  deciding to  purchase  as item of processed  foodstuff?" The paper  is consluded with a summary and some policy suggestions.  Suggestions  are also provided  for further  research.