Azernews.Az

Friday March 29 2024

Mending Russian-Turkish ties not to affect Azerbaijan-Russia trade turnover

1 July 2016 17:31 (UTC+04:00)
Mending Russian-Turkish ties not to affect Azerbaijan-Russia trade turnover

By Nigar Abbasova

The normalization of relations between Turkey and Russia will not affect the growth of the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia.

"Azerbaijan and Russia have wide economic relations including trade turnover which does not depend on the relations between Turkey and Russia," Sahib Mammadov, Azerbaijan’s deputy economy minister told reporters.

“The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia increases every year, and this is mainly due to the quality of Azerbaijani products and their already well-established place on the Russian market,” deputy minister added.

Breakdown of the Russia -Turkey relations has resulted in the increased demand in Azerbaijani agro-products. Azerbaijan managed to enter the top 3 suppliers of agricultural products to Russia among the CIS countries following the sanctions which were imposed on Turkey by Russia.

After deterioration of relations Russia imposed a ban on the supply of agricultural products from Turkey. Turkey that has long ago established its positions as a major supplier of fruits and vegetables to Russia faced with embargoes. The volume of food imports from Turkey to Russia in the first four months of 2016 cut down by $274.6 million as compared to the same period in 2015 and decreased to zero, RBC business newspaper reported. The list of banned products included fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, grapes and apples, as well as chicken products.

Rejection of Turkish tomatoes became one of the critical problems in the food industry of Russia as about 70 percent of the product in the country’s market is imported.

Previously, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Ilham Guliyev said that the country has managed to record a five-fold rise in tomato supply to Russia.

Russia which is considered to be one of the main trade partners of Azerbaijan has always been Azerbaijan’s main export market for agricultural products.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia totaled $739.8 million in January-May 2016, according to Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee. The country is in the first place among importers from Azerbaijan with a share of 18.3 percent ($609.6 million), while in the list of exporters Russia ranks the 8th with the amount of $130.2 million (with specific weight of 4.27 percent).

Diplomatic relations between Russia and Turkey soured after a Russian SU-24 trespassed Turkish airspace and was shot down by Turkish F-16 fighters on November 24, 2015. The incident shattered friendly ties between the nations both politically and economically.

Recently, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter of condolences to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin June 27 over the death of Russian Su-24 pilot and expressed regret over the incident. Now the two countries are expected to bring the relations to their level soon.

--

Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

Loading...
Latest See more