There is a lot of potential for Turkey to increase its presence on the floriculture market, national and international. Central Anatolian Ornamental Plants and Products Exporters' Association (OAIB) newly elected President Ismail Yilmaz explains the potential of the country and proposes ways to make the growers more competitive.
We have added one member from each part of the industry to the board of this association. This has happened for the first time, we have bulb plant growers, wreath producers, indoor and outdoor plant growers and cut flower growers on the board. Also for the first time in history, we have a woman board member.
The export figure last year was 85 million USD but we want to increase this to 125 million USD this year and we have planned some projects to achieve this goal.
We need to set up organized agricultural production zones where we can utilize unused government properties for cut flower and plant production, this will give a huge boost to the industry.
We also need to work on increasing product assortment. 90% of the production in Antalya is carnation, we need to start growing different products.
Additionally the energy costs are too high in Turkey, we need this to be lowered to make our growers competitive in the market place. For instance chrysanthemum is one of the most popular cut flowers in Turkey and in the world but due to high energy costs required for its production, it is grown very few in Turkey. If the government can help us by lowering energy rates, we can increase our assortment and contribute to our country via exports.
We also would like to request to lower the VAT in the local market for flowers and plants from 18% to stimulate more consumer spending. The spending per person is around 25 – 60 USD per person in Europe and around 3 USD in Turkey annually.
We would also like government incentives to be given for greenhouses that are suitable for winter production. In Antalya, the production is only from November until May and we are using Isparta to have year around production. So we want to build greenhouses suitable for winter production as well.
There is also significant amount of imports of cut flowers and plants. The only way to lower this number is by producing these products locally. We need government support for this as this requires significant greenhouse investments. If we can grow these products locally, then the need to import will be significantly lowered.
As the market stopped growing in Europe and labor is more expensive, the production and market is shifting outside of Europe. We can also grow products in our country in line with this. We would like to meet with the Netherlands to have discussions about this.
On Mother’s Day, our growers exported 42 million stems of flowers to nearly 35 countries in total, including Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. These exports amounted to 6.7 million USD in total.
The exports in the first 4 months of 2018 have also grown by nearly 35 % from 40 million USD to 54 million USD.
The exports to Russia had totally stopped but now there is news that it is allowed back. However in reality this is not true as extra custom costs are demanded from us which hurts our competitiveness in that market. Due to these extra costs, we cannot send products to that market yet.
There are around 230 exporting companies in Turkey in this industry with varying sizes and around 500 companies in total operating in this industry.
Source: Antalya Son Haber