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Press release…
A target of 40 thousand tons in thyme production and 150 million dollars in exports has been determined
Turkey, the world leader in production and exports of thyme, set a target of 40 thousand tons of production and 150 million dollars of exports while 60 million dollars of exports obtained currently.
Chairman of Aegean Furniture, Paper and Forestry Products Exporters’ Association Cahit Doğan Yağcı said that thyme exports reached to 18 thousand tons while used to be around 1000 tons in the 1980’s. Yağcı said, “Domestic production in Turkey can not meet the world’s demand. We are in a preparation of a project that will take our thyme production to 40 thousand tons in order to be able to meet the global demand.”
Thyme is wide open…
Yağcı continued as follows, “Thyme is wide open. Due to outbreak of coronavirus, decline of exports experienced in many sectors in Turkey, exports of non-wood forestry products, in January-May period, rose by 9 percent to 68 million dollars from 62 million dollars. The most important problem we experience in the export of non-wood forest products is that the production of sustainable and standard quality products is insufficient since the production areas and quantities are limited. The important thing is to be able to export value added and branded products. The biggest problem facing Turkish thyme right now is the weed mixture that occurs during harvesting. During the thyme harvest, we have to prevent the mixture of weeds. With projects that will increase both production volume and product quality, we can easily increase our thyme export to 150 million dollars.”
Pointing out that Turkey’s share in world thyme exports is 80 per cent thyme, Yağcı added, “However Greek thyme is more known in the world by the name of ‘Greek cut’. So we have to introduce and promote Turkish thyme with geographical indication.”
