Azernews.Az

By Ali Mustafayev

Tomato imports remain a contentious issue between Russia and Turkey, despite Ankara and Moscow have achieved impressive progress on a number of diplomatic issues.

The countries' relations have been strained since Turkey shot down a Russian millitary jet in November 2015. Sanctions ensued, on both sides.

Russia dropped restrictions on Turkish citrus fruits in late 2016 and both nations signed a memorandum agreeing to lift the vast majority of the bilateral trade restrictions laid down in 2015. However, the Russian ban on Turkish tomato imports still remains in place.

Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev announced that the country is not going to resume import of tomatoes from Turkey.

Tkachev, in an interview with the TV channel "Russia 24", named the support to Russian agriculturists, who invested a large amount of money this year, as a main reason for this refusal.

“We gave a serious signal at that time to the native business regarding enrichment of our Russian market with tomatoes and generally with vegetables, including cucumbers and many other kinds of vegetables. Of course public funds were spent and the business responded. I am talking about credit resources and risks. And of course it would be wrong and unfair in regard to the local producers to turn back. We are not only unprepared for this, but we also won’t do this,” said Tkachev, according to TASS.

The minister further mentioned that the production of vegetables in Russia from 2014 to 2017 increased by 30 percent. "These are hundreds of thousands of tons, this is an entire industry, these are factories for the production of vegetables, these are jobs. We are very determined, "he concluded.

Previously, Moscow announced that Russia and Turkey agreed to lift the product ban but there are still some products which cannot be imported at current time for a number of reasons, including significant amount of loans taken by the local agriculture producers who started a long production cycle.

Russia was the largest agriculture export market for Turkey. Of Turkey’s overall $1.9 billion worth of fruit and vegetable exports in 2015, $875 million worth was sold to Russia, the Daily Sabah reported.

Turkey sold $259 million worth of tomatoes to Russia in 2015, but only $87,000 in 2016.

Only in 2016, an export ban for Turkish goods and food to Russia caused Turkey’s economy a $550 million loss.

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