In Malatya, which was affected by the earthquakes in Kahramanmaras, 80 thousand 606 tons of dried apricots were exported in the 2022-2023 export season, and $435 million 546 thousand were input to the country’s economy.
Malatya Commodity Exchange Chairman Ramazan Ozcan told reporters at the stock exchange building that the dried apricot export season, which started on August 1, 2022, ended on July 31, 2023.
Stating that the earthquakes in Kahramanmaras on February 6 had a negative impact on the city and a struggle has been made to return to normalcy in the 6 months that have passed, Ozcan said, “We saw how important the EU registered apricot, an agricultural product, is for the city, region and country during the earthquake process. Despite all the negativities we have given since February, businesses and factories started to work at low capacity with minor modifications and repairs, despite the problems caused by immigration. It is pleasing that businesses and factories are back to normal today. Despite the negativities, our dried apricot exports continued.”
Stating that 3 thousand 276 tons of dried apricots were exported in July, $20 million 416 million were obtained, Ozcan said:
“By exporting 80,606 tons of dried apricots in 12 months, we achieved an income of $435 million 546 thousand for the country, the region and the economy of Malatya. We are happy to have maintained the export amount and increased the export income in parallel with the previous years. We put forth an effort to achieve our target of ‘100 thousand tons of exports, $500 million income’. Here, partial deviations in quantity and income are normal, we can observe differences due to partial regressions in parallel with the developments in the dry fruit groups and economic balances in the world. In general, when we look at our export figures last year, we achieved $60 million more economic income in dried apricot exports.”
Stating that they have increased the target in dried apricot exports, Ozcan said, “We have set a target of $750 million for the 2023-2024 export season. We will struggle to achieve this target together.”
Source: AA / Prepared by Irem Yildiz