Fresh fruits and vegetables worth $32 million 347 thousand 502 were exported from the Eastern Black Sea region to 27 countries in the first two months of 2024.
Eastern Black Sea Exporters Association (DKIB) Chairman Saffet Kalyoncu, in his written statement, stated that the countries with the most exports from the region are the Russian Federation, Georgia and Germany, and 57% of exports are made to the Russian Federation.
Regarding the exports in the January-February period, Kalyoncu said, “Fresh fruits and vegetables worth $32 million 347 thousand 502 were exported to 27 countries from the Eastern Black Sea region for 68 thousand 987 tons.”
Stating that there has been a high rate of increase in input prices and labor wages in fresh fruit and vegetable exports due to inflation rates, Kalyoncu stated that competitive prices cannot be offered to traditional customers in some countries.
Kalyoncu argued that the control of the products to be exported should be carried out in the fields, greenhouses and gardens during the harvest phase and said, “In this context, where the agricultural sector, which provides the most employment along with its sub-sectors, as well as being a strategic sector for our country, is sensitively protected by all countries due to its importance, practices that will provide competitive opportunities to exporters must be created in order to further increase exports.”
Pointing out that the biggest threat worldwide is the production losses caused by global warming on the agricultural sector, Kalyoncu said:
“In addition to the establishment of policies that apply positive discrimination to the agricultural sector and the implementation of policies and support models that will further encourage the production of fresh fruits and vegetables, we demand the elimination of unnecessary bureaucratic practices created by the public just to get money from exporters, and the establishment of practices based on trust and at the scale of today’s technological possibilities. Instead of victimizing producers and exporters with unnecessary bureaucratic practices, policies that will make villages whose population is on the verge of extinction and where no production is carried out become attractive again should be put forward, and support instruments that encourage the return to villages for production should be urgently implemented.”
Source: AA / Prepared by Irem Yildiz