Research Journal of Recent Sciences _________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502 Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 132 A study on Problems of Petrochemicals Export: Case Study: Methanol Majid Esmaeilpour1* and Ebrahim FakhraeiPersian Gulf University, Boushehr, IRAN Dept. of Management, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, IRANAvailable online at: www.isca.in , www.isca.me Received 4th February 2014, revised 10th April 2014, accepted 15th May 2014Abstract Methanol is one of the strategic products and it is used for producing many of the final products such as solvents, colors, plastics, and antifreeze. The variety of methanol derivatives and its use in different industries have introduced it as a strategic product. Moreover, the price fluctuation of methanol affects many of the manufacturing industries. The present paper intends to study problems related to the methanol export. In order to achieve the purposes of the research, survey-descriptive method has been applied. The statistical population refers to the managers, experts, and employees of Zagros petrochemical company. The data collected from the researcher’s questionnaire is analyzed by the statistical software of SPSS. The results indicate that the improvement of transportation and communication infrastructures play an important role in development of methanol export. Keywords: Petrochemical, export, methanol, transportation. IntroductionRecognizing the problems of the country export from viewpoint of a researcher who wants to study the export development strategies is very important. In fact, it is impossible to increase the country export or to achieve the researcher’s purposes without solving the problems. The problems of the country export could be studied regarding different viewpoints. Solving some of these problems in a short period of time is possible via cooperating with the relevant ministries and organizations. Moreover, solving other problems needs to make structural changes in the economy or investing in sections that lead to the increase of export income as well as having access to the new markets. Although export has many advantages for countries, governments, and companies, there are some barriers to it. In fact, all of the companies need to evaluate the effective domestic and foreign factors of the country of origin and country of destination to participate in the international markets. Neglecting this important issue makes producers unable to maintain and develop their exporting ability. Some of the barriers to companies export have internal roots, while some others result from the external environment of the company. The internal and external barriers are divided into human barriers and non-human barriers. According to the categorizations related to export barriers, it could be mentioned that the majority of barriers for exporters are known as the internal factors before entering the export, and after entering the export are equally known as the internal and external factors. The categorization of barriers might change in different times and conditions. According to the environmental conditions, this process might change. Therefore, the exporter needs to be aware of these barriers in order to be able to make a proper decision for entering or non-entering the export markets. Ortega; Da Silva and Da Rocha declared that barriers to export might have operational, structural, and attitudinal forms that prevent the initial ability of a company for developing or maintaining the international operation. Recognizing export barriers in the best way is very important, however, it is more important when the barriers waste the companies’ resources, efficiency, and performance. The negative aspect of export barriers might affect the globalization behaviors and activities of small to medium enterprises. Actually, negative aspect of export barriers has drawn researchers’ attentions in the field of international trade to itself. The studies suggest different perspectives for determining barriers especially by considering the geographical regions and specific industries. Internal and external research studies have presented different categorizations of the export barriers. Although there are many common points among different classifications, the business environment differences, different infrastructures of the countries, different trade principles of a country considering other countries, economic development stage of any country, different environmental factors, and cultural and value differences have all led to the differences between export barriers of a country and export barriers of the other countries. Research questions: What are the barriers to methanol export in the export target markets?, What are the most and the least important barriers to the methanol export in the export target markets? Research objectives: Regarding the increasing importance of the non-oil export and the third rank of methanol among the non-oil products, the managers of Zagros petrochemical company as the greatest methanol producing company of Iran and the world needs to be aware of factors that lead to its Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 133 success10. Therefore, the main purpose of the present paper is to recognize, categorize, and rank the barriers to marketing for methanol export of Zagros petrochemical company. The secondary purpose of the research is to recognize effective sub-criteria of the barriers, and then to determine the most effective sub-criterion. The applied objective of this investigation is to recognize the most important barriers for methanol export of Zagros petrochemical company and represent scientific-practical strategies for it in order to help the more effective presence of the company in the international level11. The ideal purpose of the research is that Zagros petrochemical company could take advantage of the research findings in order to have a more influential presence in the international markets, turn into the best company of non-oil products export in Iran, and allocate more portion of the country export to itself12. Literature Review In an article titled “a study on barriers to non-oil export and factors affecting it in different industries”, Carpenter V., and Jiang N concluded that export barriers in different economic sections and in different countries are relatively similar. The barriers refer to lack of export knowledge, lack of the required dataabout export of the country of destination, costs of international transportation, and legal obstacles of the country of the origin13. The difference of Iran with other countries of the world refers to inequality of quality of Iran exported goods- whether the quality of the product or the quality of packing” and inability of Iran export to compete with the external products regarding the price14. In a study titled as “a study on factors affecting the success of export companies of Iran in the middle Asia and representation of proper strategies for increasing the portion of market”, the export of pistachio, date, and raisins were studied. The results indicate that lack of converting and packing machines result in the waste of a noticeable amount of product, moreover, the products might be exported without being packed and the value-added of the re-packing will belong to the re-exporters15. Making foreign exchange agreements and the fixed exchange rate are the main barriers to the export of the aforementioned products. Fateh worked on a study titled as “instability of incomes resulted from non-oil export and factors making it” and concluded that the most instability refers to industrial export, while the least instability refers to the export of mineral and metal rocks16. This condition results from the dependence of the structure of industries on the oil incomes for the import of the goods and supporting policies of the government. In their article titled “the problems of export for the industrial producers”, Barrett N.I. and Wilkinson classified the export barriers and problems into five main groups. Problems related to the export marketing knowledge and export communication that include the followings17: Lack of knowledge about external markets, manpower for the external market research, problems for communicating with the foreign customers (language and culture), difference of promotion methods, lack of awareness of distribution channels or not having access to them, lack of experienced staff for export activities. Problems of management of national export that include the followings: Unfamiliarity with principles of supporting export, lack of awareness of information resources of the government related to the external markets, the absence of governmental encouragement, limiting principles in the foreign country, tariffs, the need for more documents in the international exchanges Problems related to the production technology that include the followings: The problems related to reaching the quality standards of the exported products, the problem of packing, lack of the parts needed for the foreign markets. Problems related to the competitive position of export of a company that include the followings: Undesirable rate of currency, lack of ability for suggesting competitive prices in the foreign markets, intense competition in the foreign markets. In a study titled as” export barriers and incentives: a study on the available evidence”, Roze Z et al. classified the barriers to export into three groups: Internal-local barriers to export: these barriers refer to the operations within the local boundaries and they indicate the internal environment of a company. The internal tendency of the management for providing the internal needs, inadequate capacity of production, and non-training the required individuals for export are some of the barriers. External-local barriers to export: these barriers relate to external environment of company; however, they are located in a geographical area of the local environment. Heavy costs of providing financial support, lack of managerial knowledge, weakness of promoting programs and governmental support are some of the barriers. External-foreign barriers to export: these barriers belong to the external environment of the company and in the international environment or within the countries of the target market. Different preferences of the foreign consumers and lack of awareness of the commercial agreements are some of the barriers18. Altintas M.H et al. have a study titled as “difference of companies understanding of export problems regarding the size and export experience of the companies”. In their study, they have divided the barriers to export into three groups: The first group refers to the external problems that exist within the external environment of the company. These problems include a vast domain such as currency fluctuations, heavy costs of providing financial support for the export, and high observation on the exchanges of the governments. The second group refers to the operating problems that are Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 134 related to the micro-level of export activities. Complexities and process problems for presenting documents in the export of goods and the delay for payment by the distributors in the export market are recognized in this group. The third group refers to problems within the company. Problems related to the marketing mix elements for organizing the export section of the company. The fourth group refers to lack of the relevant, on-time, and proper in formation. Non-accessibility to such information increases the unfamiliarity with the subject and lack of confidence19. In another study titled as “an evaluation of the export performance in the company: study, evaluation, development”, Akhwanzada et al. declared that capabilities and assets of companies make the competitive advantage of the company. They indicated that the enterprise barriers could be considered as the barriers to information and marketing, and financial and human resources. Having such capitals and skills let the exporter recognize opportunities available within an export market in order to develop the export marketing strategies and put them into practice in an efficient way20. In their study titled as “the effect of barriers on the export behavior of the developing countries”, Murthy B.R.N. et al. classified the barriers into two groups regarding the evidence observed in Tanzania. The classification includes internal and external barriers. Internal barriers including lack of knowledge related to the business methods within the commercial markets. Lack of knowledge related to opportunities of the export market, difficulty of communicating with the customer/ distributors out of the country, lack of accessibility to the information related to the export supporting programs, inability to offer products with competitive prices, limitations related to the inadequate capacity in the field of export, lack of the needed conditions for export, absence of the trained employees, lack of financial resources, and financial limitations of the export. External barriers including weak infrastructures of communication and transportation, heavy cost and unreliability of energy/power offering, domestic tax administration, lack of governmental supports, and the existence of formalities for export21. In an article titled as “the strategy of performance relation marketing: a study on empirical link of investments within the export markets”, Cavusgil and Zou categorized the barriers to export in the developing countries into two main groups of internal barriers to the export and external barriers to the export. Internal barriers of export include barriers of enterprise (marketing information, financial resources, and human resources) and barriers to the product (quality of the product and technical adaptation). External barriers of export include industry barriers (the structure of industry and competition), market barriers (direct marketing and indirect marketing barriers), and environmental barriers (direct and non-direct export barriers)22. In an article titled as “barriers to export and internationalization of company: a study related to Lebanese entrepreneurs”, Hoseini et al. studied 61 experts of the export and non-export companies in Lebanon. They recognized the barriers as follows23: The weakness of the government for overcoming the barriers to export, the competition of companies in the external markets, high tariffs of the imported goods, the need for determining price and policy of promotions, the competition of companies in the internal markets of Lebanon, the difficulty of collecting external payments of the foreign customers, difficulty of providing after sales services, and cultural and language differences. In another article titled as “barriers to export and internalization of companies from perspective of a newly-emerged market”, Cass and Julian studied 214 manufacturing companies in Malaysia and they indicated that a manufacturing company confronts some barriers for export. Such barriers are recognizable through the globalization process since initial stages to the developed stages. However, many of the barriers to export are divided into five major groups including barriers of marketing, limited knowledge about export approaches, weakness of business and performance knowledge, financial barriers and technical adaptation problems24. Methodology According to the title, questions, and objectives of the research, the present research is recognized as a survey and descriptive research regarding the method of collecting data. The statistical population of the research consists of all managers, experts, and employees of Zagros petrochemical company. The following table indicates the number of the members of the research statistical population: Table-1 A combination of the under study statistical population Section name Number of members Percent Financial managers 15 3.5 Commerce 30 7.25 Production and operation 350 82 Others 30 7.25 Total 425 100 The method of inferential analysis of data related to any research is selected based on the structure of questions, hypotheses, data, and objectives of the research. In this research, the collected research has been entered into the available software of SPSS 20, and then the following methods are used to analyze the data: Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 135 Content validity test to study the credibility of questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha test for measuring the reliability of questionnaire. Exploratory analysis to recognize the factors. The test of mean of the Kendall’s W Ranks test rank for prioritizing the factors Results and Discussion Knowing the possibility of performing a factor analysis on data: The factor analysis has been done based on the main components method on the collected data. In order to understand whether it is possible to decrease the data to several scales or not, the forty questions of a scale should be measured based on the following methods: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test (KMO), Batlett’s test. The model competence table (table-2) that includes KMO index, Kervit Bartlett index value, and probability value of the index has been presented. Table-2 KMO index and results of Kervit Bartlett test and factor correlation Matrix Index Values KMO index 0.554 Kervit Bartlett index 5964.064 Possibility value 0.000 The competence of KMO sampling is determined based on the variance value of the data. If the variance is higher than 0.5, the competence is acceptable and the more it is close to one, the better it is. As it is observed, the value equals 0.554. Therefore, the factor analysis is performed for the questions and the research data is decreased to a number of sub-basic factors. Moreover, result of Bartlett’s test (5964.064) which is significant at error level equal to 0.01 indicate that correlation matrix among the questions is not the equality matrix. In other words, there is a high correlation between the questions of any factor, while no correlation is observed between the questions of a factor and the other factor questions. Financial infrastructural barriers: The financial infrastructural factor is the first factor that could be recognized and studied by factor analysis in the non-oil export area. In the present paper, 12 questions related to the factor have been determined. The maximum load factor belongs to the question of “the restricting rules and difficult formalities of customs in the target country” with the value equal to 0.854, and the minimum load factor belongs to the question of “improper methods of management in the organization” with the value equal to 0.354. The following table indicates questions and factor loads of this factor. Lack of competitive advantages: One of the most important recognized factors is “lack of competitive advantages”. In this research, 10 questions related to this factor have been recognized. The maximum load factor is related to the question of “severe fluctuations of the currency” with the value of 0.753, and the minimum load factor is related to the question of “negative consequences of non-membership in the world trade organization (WTO)” with the value of 0.467. The following table indicates questions and load factor of the mentioned factor. Table-3 Questions and load factor Factor Questions Load factor Financial Infrastructural BarriersGreat geographical distance with the target country/countries 0/633 Size and structure of the company 0/698 The increasing inflation and its effect on the increase of production costs 0/417 Weak infrastructures of communication and transportation0/702 Heavy costs of providing financial resources for export 0/745 Lack of the required conditions for export 0/635 Governmental bureaucracy and customs formalities in Iran for export 0/797 Limiting rules and customs formalities in the target country 0/854 High rate of tariff and tax for export in the country 0/687 Lack of enough awareness of the target market needs 0/730 Volume limitations of the export 0/457 Improper methods of management in the organization 0/354 Barriers related to government: In this research, 6 questions related to the factor of “barriers related to government” have been recognized. The maximum load factor is related to the question of “difficulty of collecting foreign payments” with the value of 0.754, while the minimum load factor is related to the question of “lack of policies of governmental supports” with the value of 0.511. Table 5 indicates the relevant questions and load factor. Low speed of attracting customers: One of the other important recognized factors is the factor of “low speed of attracting customers”. In this research, 2 questions are related to this factor. The maximum load factor is related to the question of “ customers’ high ability to choose the seller for a product” with the value equal to 0.697 and the minimum load factor related to the question of “ problems related to the management of export documents” with the value equal to -0.517. Table 6 indicates the questions and load factor related to this factor. Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 136 Table-4 Questions and load factor of lack of competitive advantages Factor Indices (questions) Load factor Lack of competitive advantagesInability to have a price competition with the companies producing similar external products 0/568 Severe competition in the target markets 0/349 Lack of distribution channels in the abroad countries 0/515 weak use of regional cooperation 0/624 lack of awareness of analyzing target markets (weakness of marketing research) 0/582 lack of knowledge about the opportunities of the export market 0/745 Negative consequences of non-membership in WTO 0/467 severe fluctuations of currency 0/753 Difficulty to find wholesalers or retailers in the foreign markets 0/742 not using the experiences of successful countries/ companies in relation to the product 0/545 Table-5 Questions and load factor related to the governmentFactor Questions (indices) Load factor Government High cost of providing food715/0 Difficulty of collecting foreign payments754/0 Lack of policies of governmental support511/0 the intervention of government in the imports and exports of the companies701/0 Political instability in Iran 592/0 Political instability of the target country675/0 Table-6 Questions and load factor of low speed of attracting customers Factor Questions Load factor Low speed of attracting customers problems related to management of exporting documents517/0 - High ability of customers to choose the seller of the products697/0 Commercial uncertainty: In this research, four questions related to the factor of “commercial uncertainty” have been recognized. The maximum load factor is related to the question of “uncertainty of on-time receiving adequate initial materials” with the value of 0.759, and the minimum load factor is related to the question of “improper political relation with the target country/countries” with the value of 0.338. Table 7 indicates the questions and load factor of the mentioned factor. Table-7 Questions and load factor of commercial uncertaintyFactor Questions Load factor Commercial uncertainty uncertainty about on-time receiving of the initial materials759/0 improper political relations with the target country/ countries338/0 lack of capable management and enough knowledge in the field of export for the external sales 453/0 problems related to the foreign exchange problems550/0 Commercial limitations: In this research, 3 questions related to the factor of “commercial limitations” have been recognized. The maximum load factor is related to the question of “the difference of governmental currency and free currency” with the value of 0.707 and the minimum load factor is related to the question of “problems related to the political-economic sanctions” with the value of -0.708. Table 8 indicates the questions and load factor of this factor. Table-8 Questions and load factor of the commercial limitations Factor Questions Load factor Commercial limitations problems related to the economic-political sanctions 708/0 - problems related to insurance and high risk of international export504/0 the difference of governmental currency and the free currency 707/0 Barriers related to promotion: In this research, three questions related to the factor of “barriers related to the promotion” have been recognized. The maximum load factor is related to the question of “inactivity of political agencies in the field of export in the target country” with the value of 0.632 and the minimum load factor is related to the question of “exclusivity of the seller of initial materials (food) and lack of bargaining power of this factor” with the value of -0.688. The following table indicates the questions and load factor of this factor. Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 137 Table-9 Questions and load factor of barriers related to promotion Factor Questions Load factor Promotion exclusivity of the seller of initial materials (food) and lack of bargaining power of this factor688/0 - problems related to communicating with the buyers566/0 inactivity of political agencies in the field of export in the target country 632/0 The smallness or bigness of the rotation component matrix Table-10 is called the factor transformation matrix. This matrix is used for calculating the rotation component matrix from the non-rotated matrix (the main component matrix). According to the following table, if non-oriented elements are close to zero, it could be concluded that the rotation will be relatively small. However, if the value of the oriented elements is greater than 0.5, the bigger rotation will be used. For instance, the value of 0.805 as a non-oriented value indicates that the rotation is relatively big. Figure-1 indicates the rotated matrix. In fact, the figure indicates questions in a rotated component space and helps to understand how the questions are organized in a common component space. As it is observed, many of the variables are loaded on the first component (factor). Ranking the factors: In order to rank the recognized factors, Kendall28’s W Ranks test has been used. The mentioned test compares the mean of ranks between the variables in order to study the difference of means. The test value varies between 0 and 1. If the values are close to zero, there will be less agreement among the respondents in relation to the considered variables, and if the values are close to one, there will be more agreement among them. The mentioned test is the normalized form of Friedman test and it measures the amount of agreement among the respondents as an agreement coefficient. According to this test, any respondent is considered as a rank-giver and any question is considered as a variable. The results have been presented in table 11 and 12. Figure-1 The rotated space of components (factors)Table-10 The factor transportation matrix Factor Financial infrastructure Lack of competitive advantages Government Low speed of attracting customers Commercial uncertainty Commercial limitation Promotion Financial infrastructure .527 .635 .424 .076 .333 .087 .125 Lack of competitive advantages .805 -.227 -.466 -.214 -.175 -.081 -.010 Government .035 -.199 .549 -.761 -.111 .029 -.258 Low speed of attracting customers -.203 .654 -.363 -.349 -.180 -.429 -.246 Commercial uncertainty -.027 -.198 -.184 -.100 .865 -.217 -.346 Commercial limitation .045 -.189 .276 .080 -.017 -.839 .418 promotion .169 -.051 .246 .482 -.254 -.221 -.750 Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 138 Table-11 The rank of factors Number of factorFactor Mean rank 1 Financial infrastructure 48/1 Lack of competitive advantages 12/5 3 Government 41/5 Low speed of attracting customers 41/3 Commercial uncertainty 24/5 Commercial limitation 27/4 promotion 06/3 As it is observed, the third factor (government) has the maximum and the first factor (financial infrastructural factor) has the minimum rank of mean regarding the respondents’ viewpoints. Table-12 indicates the statistics of the test. Since level of significance of the test equals 0.000 and it is smaller than 0.05, it should be mentioned that the ranks of the seven factors are different from one another. Table-12 The statistics of test N 163 Kendall's W 453/0 Chi-Square 729442 Df 6 Asymp. Sig. 000/0 Conclusion According to the performed analyses and achieved results, the following questions could be answered: Q1: what are the barriers to the export of methanol in target markets of export? In order to respond to first question of this study, the statistical process of exploratory factor analysis has been used. In this research, the theoretical literature of the research was studied and the managers of Zagros petrochemical company were interviewed, and finally 40 indices (questions) were recognized as the barriers to the export of methanol. As a result, seven barriers (factor) were recognized via the explanatory factor analysis as the factors that affect the export of methanol of Zagros petrochemical company in the target markets. The following table indicates relevant factors and indices (questions) as well as their load factor. Financial infrastructural factor: Majority of producers offer their products to the markets with the help of intermediaries. They attempt to make a distributing channel, in other words, they make a set of interdependent organizations in order to offer the product to the consumer. The distribution channel is more than a simple collection of organizations which are dependent to one another via different ways. The distribution channel is a complicated behavioral system where people and companies communicate with one another in order to provide the purposes of the individuals and companies. In a study titled as “export, size of company, and dynamism of the company”, Alexandrides declares that it is possible to decrease the product price as a result of the presence of barriers to the export markets such as transportation costs, tariffs, and acting based on the international standards25Table-13 The recognized seven factors Lack of competitive advantages government Low speed of attracting customer Commercial uncertainty The barriers to the export of methanol in Zagros petrochemical company Commercial limitation Promotion Financial infrastructures Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 139 Wagner also declared that not only scale but also factors such as taking advantage of professionalizing affairs, accessibility of financial resources with a low cost, and high capacity of risking are the factors that justify the positive effect of size of enterprise on the possibility of its being an exporter. Figueiredo, K.F. et al. declared that the weak infrastructures and bribery methods among the governmental officials are the main external barriers26. Dicle understood that time-consuming procedures for the exporters of the produced goods are the barriers to the export to Turkey27. Bodur, M. and Cavusgil, S.T worked on a research titled as “formal barriers to export and the issue of poverty” in the country of Moldova. Porto classified the export barriers to two sections of formal and informal barriers. The formal barriers include the customs tariffs, volume limitations of export, and tax of the export. The informal barriers include transportation cost, severe formalities of customs, official formalities, difficult rules, and corruption (bribery)28. The factor of lack of competitive advantages: Czinkota, M.R. and Rocks believed that the knowledge of marketing related to foreign markets is important for the competitive and commercial activities, and lack of capable management for the foreign sales29. Lack of knowledge for using the external opportunities and improving marketing is the most important barrier to the exporting small to medium enterprises in the developing countries. Moreover, the limited knowledge on the potential markets is the main barrier to the export activities29. Cook, V.J. declared that the marketing knowledge is related to the available marketing information in the companies. The companies that take advantage of proper and correct information have a better condition for responding to export problems. Information relating to export especially marketing knowledge is the most serious problem about manufacturing companies in developing countries30. The factor of government: Chen, Ching-Fu, Chang, Yu-Ying declare that government highly intervenes in the process of export. Therefore, the official procedure might bring about problems for those who have recently entered the export process31. The factor of low speed of attracting customers: Many factors affect the low speed of attracting customers. Eskandar J worked on a research titled as “formal barriers to export and the issue of poverty” in the country of Moldova. Porto classified the export barriers to two sections of formal and informal barriers. The formal barriers include the customs tariffs, volume limitations of export, and tax of the export. The informal barriers include transportation cost, severe formalities of customs, official formalities, difficult rules, and corruption (bribery). The research indicates that following the business liberalism is not enough and the informal barriers could cause many problems for the business. Therefore, the informal barriers have a higher importance32. The factor of commercial uncertainty: This factor refers to cases such as uncertainty about on-time receiving of the initial materials, problems related to the foreign exchange agreements, lack of capable management, and lack of adequate knowledge in the field of export for the external sales32. Unfortunately, over the recent years commercial uncertainty increased both for the non-oil export and oil-export. Certainly, one of the factors that affect making uncertainty in the foreign business refers to improper political relations with the target country/countries. Christensen, C.H. and Da Rocha(2002) indicated political instability and competition among foreign markets are the main external barriers. The nature of external barriers changes from one time to another time and from one country to another country33. The factor of commercial limitations: This factor refers to the uncontrollable factors determined by the exporter. In Iran, the most important factor refers to the political-economic sanctions. Since political-economic sanctions are imposed on Iran, few research studies have been done in this case in the other countries. Therefore, researchers have worked on the relevant studies. Calantone, R et al. confirmed that policies of converting currency affect the financial programs of export and accessibility of currency34. The factor of promotion: Cardoso, J.F.M recognized the improper marketing and promotion programs as the barriers that restrict the export activities35. Bilkey, W. and Tesar, G worked on a research related to the small and medium enterprises in the Korea37. They indicated that different cultures include business characteristics and cause barriers for the companies. They also showed that 65 percent of the companies have noticed problems in this area36. Q2: what are the most and least important barriers to the export of methanol in export target markets? In order to respond to the second question, the ranking of the recognized factors is done by using the test of Kendall’s W ranks. Therefore, the mean of rank of any of the factors indicate their importance. Results have been indicated in table-13. Table-13 The ranks of recognized factors Factor Importance Rank Government 41/5 1 Commercial uncertainty 24/5 2 Lack of competitive advantages12/5 3 Commercial limitations 27/4 4 Low speed of attracting customers41/3 5 Promotion 06/3 6 Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 132-141, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 140 As it is observed, respondents believe that the factor of government has the most importance, commercial uncertainty has the second rank, and financial infrastructure has the least rank of importance. References 1.Ghazizadeh M, A study on factors affecting the success of export companies of Iran in the Middle East markets and presenting proper strategies for increasing the portion of market”, the third International Conference of Management, Tehran (2005) 2.Aggrawal S.C., South American Exports and Imports Potentials and Problems, Management International Review,26, 44-56 (1986) 3.Ahmad Z.U., Craig J.C., Baalbaki I. and Hadadian T.V., Export Barriers and Firm Internationalization: A Study of Lebanese Entrepreneurs, Journal of Management and World Business Research, 1, 1, 11-22 (2004)4.Khodaie Mahmoodi R, Sarabi Nejad S and Ershadi M., Expert Systems and Artificial Intelligence Capabilities Empower Strategic Decisions: A Case study, Res. 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