Identification of Industrial Clusters in Golestan Province Iran (Case: Industrial Estates of Golestan Province, Iran)

One of the economic development strategies that are gotten much attention during the recent years is development by industrial clusters. Industrial cluster refers to a set of industries that are concentrated in a particular geographic area and there are dependencies between them and these companies produce related or complementary products. There are numerous advantages and benefits associated with industries within the cluster. Golestan province with 1.3 percent of GDP¹ has been in the nineteenth place among the provinces and its economic sectors are divided into four main categories of agriculture, industry, services and construction. The industrial sector with 4.5% of GDP is in fourth place among the economic sectors, despite the potential and capacity in this sector, this would indicate improper use of its capacity. So researcher has sought to identify industrial clusters in Golestan province in order to get several advantages of industrial clusters to using the potential of the industries. The research type is descriptive and survey and its statistical population are active industrial units that are located in the industrial estates of Golestan province. The study involved 136 industrial units as a sample and the data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. Note that there is no standard methodology for the analysis of industrial clusters and researchers have used concepts of both qualitative and quantitative approaches. So this research has combined qualitative and quantitative methods with the Capability of the being Industry Cluster evaluation matrix, statistical tests, Structural equation modeling and analytic hierarchy process (AHP), then data were analyzed and industrial clusters in Golestan province were identified and ranked. The findings of the study have introduced four industrial clusters of sorting and packing of fruits and vegetables, dairy products, cardboard and carton products and wooden products in order of preference in Golestan province.