Measuring Competitiveness of Shrimp Farming in Southern Iran: Using Pam Approach

Abstract

Shrimp farming in Iran is one of the fast growing segments of the economy. In 1994, around 1% of Iranian shrimp production was farmed and by 2004 the share of shrimp farming increased to 60%. In spite of the fact that shrimp culture had relatively rapid growth in last decade, due to increase in production cost and decrease in international price, the profit of shrimp production has decreased in recent years. The purpose of this research is to analyze the competitiveness of Iranian shrimp farming. The policy analysis matrix (PAM) method was used to investigate divergence between market and social profit in the Iranian shrimp industry. The results indicated that social prices for production cost were higher than market prices for fuel, electricity, fertilizer and less than market price for feed. It indicates that in spite of government subsidies to shrimp production inputs, the shrimp producers categorized as tax payers for total input cost. In addition, it was concluded that shrimp social price and production profit were less than market prices.