THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
Related Articles
Press release…
At the end of the first four months of the year, the total exports of the cereals, pulses, oilseeds and products sector, which includes basic food products such as biscuits, wheat flour, vegetable oils, sugary and cocoa products and pasta, soared by 6 percent to 4 billion dollars. The sector, whose exports exceeded 1 billion dollars every month during the first quarter, exported 884 million dollars in April, which was calculated with missing working days due to the Ramadan Feast. In the four-month period in which the revenue obtained from Iraq, where the most exports were made, surged by 15.6 percent, the USA ranked second despite a 15.2 percent decline. Biscuit-pasta, wheat flour, sugar and sugar products were the products exported the most in this period.
Ahmet Tiryakioğlu, Chairman of the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TIM) Cereals, Pulses, Oil Seeds and Products Sector Board, stated that the efficiency achieved in production last year and the 26.1 percent spike in exports in terms of quantity played an important role in this spike achieved despite the increasing costs in terms of foreign currency.
“In the recent period when many factors such as geopolitical risks and climate disasters have adversely affected the stability of commodity prices, fluctuations in food prices pose problems for global food suppliers. For example, we find cocoa at very high prices in global markets for a while, and while we have not reflected the costs of this in our sales prices, we receive news that the price hikes here have stabilised. Since food manufacturing is not an area where you can stock infinite raw materials due to product freshness, we have to bear such periodic costs in order to ensure sustainability in production,” he said.
“Another priority issue for us is to ensure domestic supply security and prevent price fluctuations. Although green lentil is the product whose global prices have recently increased the most among the cereals and pulses products in our field of activity, we apply the Ministry’s export restriction in this field. Due to all these factors, our profit margins have narrowed recently, but we are more optimistic about the second half of the year depending on the developments both at home and abroad,” he explained.
Indicating that they expect last year’s productivity in cereal production to continue in this harvest period, he noted, “It is estimated that the wheat cultivation area in Türkiye will exceed 7.2 million hectares this year. Even if the extraordinary rainfall experienced in spring last year is not repeated, wheat production will reach 20 million tonnes with the effect of rising cultivation areas. Türkiye is reaping the fruits of policies supporting agriculture in this regard.”
“We carried out promotional activities in 4 different regions in the first 3 months”
Pointing out that they carried out promotional activities in 4 different regions in the first three months of the year with the brand of Turkish Food Exporters (TGİ – TFE), which is formed by 6 Exporters Associations representing nearly 13 thousand member companies, including the largest enterprises in the field of food, he concluded his words as follows:
“In the first quarter, our Exporters Associations promoted Turkish products at fairs in different parts of the world from Germany to Japan, Dubai to Russia. With the umbrella brand of Turkish Food Exporters, they hosted the leading company representatives of Europe, Middle East, North Asia and Far East regions at our stands. We will continue our international activities in co-operation with the Ministry of Trade.”
