Press release…
Celal Kadooğlu, President of Southeastern Anatolia Cereals, Pulses, Oil Seeds and Products Exporters’ Association: “It is meaningful to utilise the abundance of sunflower seeds in the world.”
Celal Kadooğlu, in his written statement, said that in Southeastern Anatolia, which was the export leader of the cereals, pulses, oil seeds and products sector last year, the sector’s exports in January totalled 282 million dollars.
“Cereals also managed to be the sector that realised the highest exports throughout the region, which includes important industrial cities, especially Gaziantep region. Cereal producers in the region, which managed to ramp up their exports by 1.6 per cent on quantity basis compared to the same period of the previous year, earned 5.7 per cent less income due to the change in global food prices. Iraq, the United States and Syria came first in the basic food exports of Southeastern Anatolia. Pasta, wheat flour and biscuits and wafers were exported the most,” he said.
“Half of Türkiye’s sunflower oil exports are from Southeastern Anatolia”
Celal Kadooğlu, President of the Southeastern Anatolian Cereals, Pulses, Oil Seeds and Products Exporters’ Association of Southeastern Anatolia, evaluating the reduction of customs duty on these products with the communiqué on the application of tariff quotas on the import of oilseed sunflower seeds and crude sunflower oil, stated the following:
“Türkiye is a supply centre for a wide geography with its advanced private sector investments in vegetable oil. Last year, our country exported 963 million dollars of sunflower oil, half of the exports were realised from the Southeastern Anatolia region. Currently, there is an abundance of raw materials for sunflower seeds and oil in the world.”
Pointing out that experts estimate that global sunflower production reached 22 million metric tonnes last year, Kadooğlu added, “While the yields of sunflower seed producing countries, especially Ukraine, have increased so much and the global prices of sunflower seed have decreased either, this decision is a step that will reduce the raw material costs of enterprises. While taking this decision, our Ministry of Trade took into consideration the healthy functioning of the markets until the domestic harvest period. In this period when we are mobilised to fight inflation, we find the decision significant to reduce the customs duty taken before Ramadan, when food shopping will be peaking.”