THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
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Press release…
The Izmir Commodity Exchange (İTB) Ordinary Assembly Meeting was held on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 through video conferencing and with the broad participation of the Assembly Members.
Addressing the Assembly Members, Işınsu Kestelli, Chairwoman of the Board, said that Turkey displayed a unique combat against this pandemic that will be an example to the whole world.
Stating that although economic activies slowed in agricultural production, Kestelli explained, “According to the first estimates announced by TURKSTAT, 2020 vegetable production is expected to increase. In this season, we once again saw the importance of agricultural insurances in order to minimize the economic impact of the adverse climate events that we frequently experience in recent years on our producers. As in the past crisis periods, we see that countries have implemented protective policies in agriculture again. While developing long-term policies coordinated with new technologies in this target path, producers have begun to be protected more and more.”
Emphasizing that there has been a radical change in the shopping habits of the world with the coronavirus epidemic, this has increased the interest in electronic commerce and electronic shopping sites have become very popular, Kestelli said, “In the first 5 months of this year, the e-commerce volume increased by 48 percent compared to the same period last year and reached to 63 billion liras. While looking at detailed analysis on a sector basis, it is clear that agriculture and agricultural products are still not sufficiently benefiting from the e-commerce opportunity. According to the data of the E-commerce Operators’ Association, 1 million people started to use e-commerce for the first time during the pandemic period. It is very clear that the interest in e-commerce, which is the driving force of the economy, will increase rapidly from now on.”
Referring to the works of the ‘E-Commodity Bazaar’ project in the last part of her speech, Işınsu Kestelli noted that they prepared the basic electronic commerce infrastructure with the ‘E-Commodity Bazaar’ buying-selling platform by foreseeing the digital transformation that has accelerated in the current period as the Izmir Commodity Exchange.”
Kestelli concluded, “We continued our studies on developing, increasing their functions and enriching the number of members with corporate collaborations, starting before the pandemic period and we still continue. I expect our members to be more willing and brave in these electronic marketplaces that offer different target markets and functions and on the ever-expanding electronic commerce opportunities.”
