Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir said, “Malatya has an export income of approximately $650 million from apricots, but our goal is to quickly increase this to $2 billion.”
Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacir, who visited the World Apricot Trade Center in Malatya, said in his speech that they are making great efforts to quickly revive Malatya’s industry, production, employment and exports after the earthquakes.
Kacir stated that all public institutions and organizations are making an effort in this sense and said:
“With the help of KOSGEB, new industrial zones and industrial estates that we have established with the investment incentives of our Ministry of Industry and Technology, as well as regional development projects from four branches, with Allah’s wishes, our Malatya and our entire earthquake zone will be revived quickly, we will be taking steps to ensure that the wheels turn quickly in this region. This center we are in is very important to us. Because apricot has a very unique and special place in Malatya’s trade and Malatya’s economy. Malatya has an export income of approximately $650 million from apricots, but our goal is to quickly increase this to $2 billion, I hope. For this, we need to develop more trade opportunities, R&D opportunities and export opportunities.”
Minister Kacir stated that companies will have the opportunity to research and develop at the World Apricot Trade Center.
“We are talking about a commercial complex of 300 thousand square meters in total. The Apricot World Trade Center constitutes an area of 12 thousand square meters. At the same time, a dried apricot, licensed storage center is another important investment of ours. We consider licensed storage activities to extend the supply period of dried apricots very important, very valuable. With this understanding, we have also realized a storage investment of €13 million in the region with a capacity of 5 thousand tons. As the Ministry of Industry and Technology, we are very pleased to support these investments led by our Metropolitan Municipality. We believe that the steps that will lift our earthquake region up are the steps towards employment, production, investment and exports. Hopefully, we will accelerate these steps in the coming period. We will both bring the region together with new industrial areas and replace our destroyed or heavily damaged industrial sites with new industrial sites.”
Emphasizing that they will continue to provide support to industrialists and SMEs, Kacir said, “We will rapidly reflect a World Bank resource of $450 million in the upcoming period.
Minister Kacir visited the provincial presidencies of the AK Party and MHP within the scope of his contacts in the city, and met with the party members.
Kacir, who also went to the Jewelers’ Bazaar in the city center, chatted with the shopkeepers there.
Source: Trthaber / Prepared by Irem Yildiz