Road Map 2016 for aqua products industry ready

* Sectorial meeting of the aqua products companies was held and the promotional strategies determined for the year 2016.
 
Last year, exports of aqua products from Turkey have stepped back 8%, while it maintained foreign currency earnings at 690 million dollars level. Sinan Kiziltan, chairman of the Aegean aqua and livestock products exporters association, informed about the developments in the sector. He emphasized on the importance of transportation costs, media support and activities in trade fairs in the world.
He said, “During the last four years our exports to the USA market have increased to 24 million dollars from 5 million dollars, thanks to the THY’s decision to expand its flights to this market from 3 to 8 per day. We demand a discount in freight charges to this country. In this regard, we have talks with THY authorities via the chairman of Turkish Exporters Assembly, our umbrella organization.”
He also added, “We, as the promotional committee for aqua products, have participated in the fairs held in Canada and Thailand, both are destinations of THY. We decided to be more active in the USA and France markets in 2016. Last year the industry exported 690 million dollars worth of aqua products. Our target for the year 2023 is 1.5 billion dollars of exports. We sold our products in 80 countries. Our target is to sell our products in 100 countries.
Social media has become a major tool for promotion, so, we engaged and increased our activities on several platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn.”
The promotional committee for aqua products had been participating in aqua product fairs held in Brussels. The committee and team member companies will be participating in Boston aqua products fair held in Boston, 6^th to 8^th March 2016.
“STG, the Committee, participated in 14 fairs in the world in 2015. Including the fairs in Germany, USA, Thailand, South Korea, Belgium, Canada, South Africa, China, Russia, Spain, UAE, Japan and Iraq,” says, Melih Isliel, Chairman of the promotional committee for aqua products. The committee will participate in 12 fairs this year.
Turkish producers of aquaculture products have been renewed their membership in FEAP, Federation of European Aquaculture Producers, after a 6 years’ of silence period. The association will be represented in FEAP by M. Taner Ciger.
In sectoral meeting of the STG other issues in the sector have also been discussed.
 
The following shows the amount and value of exports of Turkish aqua products over 15 years