Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

Azerbaijan is one of the major producers and exporters of persimmon. Persimmon holds a major share in the export of non-oil products.

New persimmon processing plants will open in Azerbaijan’s Ganja city in the near future, Chairman of the Persimmon Producers and Exporters Association Gadir Yusifov told Trend.

He said that in the future, there are plans to create conditions for the production of frozen persimmon at these plants.

"Such plants operate in Balakan, Agjabadi and Goychay districts," he noted. "In the future, similar plants may start operating in other parts of the country. In the Azerbaijani districts, persimmon is mainly grown in Goychay, Balakan, Agjabadi districts, in Ganja, and that’s why it was reasonable to open plants for the production of semi-dried and dried persimmon in these areas."

The Persimmon Producers and Exporters Association was established in August 2017 on the initiative of entrepreneurs and with the support of the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan, to increase the number of persimmon gardens, expand persimmon production and maximize exports.

The annual production capacity of the association is 6,000 tons and export capacity is 5,400 tons.

Currently, 50,000 tons of dates are stored in refrigerators, which will be exported until the end of March.

Last year, Azerbaijan increased the sale of persimmon by 17.5 percent. For the whole of 2017, Azerbaijan sold persimmons for a total amount of $ 97 million. In 2018, the cultivation reached $ 114 million, which indicates an increase of 17.5 percent.

Azerbaijani persimmon is mainly exported to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates.

Persimmon is a Chinese-born fruit specie grown mainly in subtropical climates in the world. Approximately 70 percent of the world's 4 million tons of persimmon production appeared in China. A significant amount of persimmons are produced in Korea, Japan, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Italy, Israel, Uzbekistan and Turkey.

Although yet it is unknown who planted the first trees persimmons in Azerbaijan, the persimmon grown in our country has been named "Caucasus persimmon".

The reason for the wide distribution of this fruit is its qualities - relatively frost-resistant, beautiful, with attractive fruits, having high nutritional and healing properties, saturated vitamins and minerals.

Persimmon, cultivated in Azerbaijan, contains large amounts of glucose, fructose, organic acids, carotene, and vitamin C, and other health properties that make it a natural medicine. It helps to fight weakness, anemia, vitamin deficiency and chronic gastrointestinal diseases.

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

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