Georgia sees benefits of increasing exports to Turkey

Georgia is exploring ways it can increase its exports to Turkey, particularly agricultural products including live cattle, fresh meat, tea, wine, honey and mineral water.

Turkey is our number one trade partner and we obviously see opportunities to increase our export capacity to Turkey,” said Georgia’s Economy Minister Dimitry Kumsishvili after meeting his Turkish counterpart Mustafa Elitash in Istanbul today.

To boost bilateral trade, the Georgian Minister suggested Turkey could lower its customs tariffs and eradicate technical barriers for Georgian exports.

Turkey has quiet high tariffs and we asked them to review a sentence about reducing tariffs. At the same time we receive positive words from the Turkish Minister about reducing the technical barriers,” said Kumsishvili.

During his two-day visit to Turkey Kumsishvili is scheduled to meet senior officials from leading Turkish companies who are interested in investing in Georgia. Kumsishvili will introduce them to Georgia’s reforms which helped develop the country’s economy and encourage more foreign investments.

Turkey was Georgia’s top trading partner between January-November 2015, according to data published by the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat).

Trade turnover between two countries in the first 11 months of 2015 reached $1.380 billion. This made up 16 percent of Georgia’s total external trade turnover, said Geostat.