A feasibility study of promoting Shahid Rajaee Port to a free trade-industrial port

This research investigates the main factors for the possibility of converting Shahid Rajaee port to a free trade-industrial port. In the first stage of this research, the main factors influencing the formation of a free trade-industrial port have been recognized with the help of primary and secondary data in five distinctive groups. In the second stage, those main factors have been evaluated by the aid of questionnaires which had been distributed among 338 experts of Bandar Abbas city, Shahid Rajaee port and Shahid Bahonar port. In total, 254 of the questionnaires (75% of the total volume of the sample of the research) have been returned. Software packages such as SPSS and LISREL have been used for statistical analyses. After investigating the various objectives of the ports of the world, the main possible reasons for the failure of free zones of Iran have been presented in this paper. Furthermore, various cases have been analyzed and studied. Finally, it has been found that Shahid Rajaee port is a place with sufficient potential in order to be converted into a free trade-industrial port

Forecasting the dry bulk freight market in 2011 and 2012

Dry Bulk market is the largest sector of world shipping market. The analysis of this market and the assessment of dry bulk freight rate, market behavior, policy making in this field, transportation policies and fleet development, and also research in dry bulk shipping industry is inevitable. The main aim of this study is to analyze and forecast the future of dry bulk freight market in 2011 and 2012. Since the shipping industry is known to be a volatile industry; therefore, understanding the characteristics of this market and forecasting its volatilities have been of prime interest in operational and financial decision makings. To achieve this aim, linear regression, multiple regression and time series analyses (winer’s exponential smoothing) methods is used. Results of the study show that the Baltic Dry Index in 2011 and 2012 may decrease in relation to 2010, but this drop in 2011 will be drastic and in 2012 modest