After the political crisis due to a Russian military plane being shot by Turkish military forces at the Syrian border in 2016, Russia had imposed a ban on imported goods from Turkey. With the crisis close to being over, Russia has lifted the ban for importing tomatoes from Turkey since November 1st, 2017. However the ban was lifted only for 7 companies in Turkey. According to the most recent news, Russian Federal Agricultural Products Monitoring Agency (Rosselhoznadzor) has increased the number of companies from Turkey allowed to export tomatoes into Russia to 12. Even though this news was somewhat promising for the growers, it still angered the tomato growers in Turkey.
Commenting on the issue, Mersin Agricultural Chamber of Commerce President Cengiz Gokcel: “This is not acceptable for our country and our growers. By allowing only certain firms to export to Russia, the Russian government is causing unfair trade and creation of monopolies among tomato growers. This hurts our industry and our country’s trade. It is not fair to ban professional companies from exporting their products to Russia. This is an ill-willed action by the Russian government. This issue should be raised in meetings between officials of both countries and solved immediately. Turkey should pressure Russian officials to correct this mistake. All companies that are legally allowed to export should be able to export. We are working very hard towards increasing the demand in local and foreign markets for tomatoes but this kind of regulations messes up the supply-demand balance, results in the monopolization in the sector, lowers the prices of tomatoes and consequently hurts tomato growers.
I would like to remind that Russia is the main country where we can export agricultural products and I think the government should reach agreements with other countries as well to boost agricultural trade and this way all the growers in Turkey will benefit from this. The costs of production in greenhouses are increasing day by day as the exchange rate for the euro is going up and we import a lot of the greenhouse materials, seeds, soil and fertilizer from other countries. We only have the marketing and sales network and access to the Russian market for agricultural products. Russia is aware that they are the main buyer of Turkish agricultural goods and that’s why they are bringing in such restrictions to prevent exporters from getting good prices on the Russian market. That’s why we are advising strongly to sign post-entry quarantine agreements with other countries to open up trade lanes and boost the sales of greenhouse products to these countries. This way we will not be so much dependent on the Russian market for exporting agricultural goods which will also give strength to us in trade negotiations with Russia. If these post-entry quarantine agreements are not signed, then it will put our country and our growers into a bind. It will be very difficult for our growers to stay financially viable and continue production otherwise. I am speaking specifically here for growers in Mersin.”
Source: Haberci