Fresh fruits and vegetable exports to Russia far below expectations in first 5 months

It was reported by Antalya Trade Exchange that in the first 5 months of this year fresh fruits and vegetables exports to Russia had been US$ 3 million, only. Fresh fruits and vegetables exports to Russia was US Dollars 109 million earlier.

It was also reported by the same source that despite the economic growth rate of 5 percent in the first quarter of 2017, this ratio had remained at 3.2 percent in the agricultural sector meaning sectoral contribution to overall economic growth had been below expected performance. This situation was mainly due to following reasons;

Incentives/support have not accelerated growth
Soil losses experienced in the sector
Withdrawal from agricultural activities
Facilitation of agricultural imports on for price stability
Decrease in world agricultural product prices
Increase in costs

The growth in the agriculture sector means much for Antalya agriculture in specific and it is possible to see this by looking at the trends in fresh fruit and vegetable exports. The export of fresh fruits and vegetables in the first 5 months of 2017 is 189 million dollars and this represents an increase of 11% compared to same period last year.

Although this seems to reflect a strong growth, that US$ 189 million worth of exports corresponds to the performance in 2008, only. In the year of highest exports with US$ 243 million, Russia’s share was US$ 109 million and only 3 million dollars have been exported to Russia so far. To recap, it was possible to make up for only one third of the loss incurred by decrease in Russia exports meaning there is so much more work to do about new/alternative markets.