SUMMARY

66 fresh produce exporters and 7 importers were selected in Bursa, Antalya, Trabzon, Mersin, Adana, Hatay and İzmir provinces in 2002 and their evaluations were made based on face-to-face conversations.

In the first part of the study the national and world production of fruit and vegetables their international trade patterns, exports and imports were studied.

Information’s obtained by questionnaires from the firms constituted the second part of the project.

Although statistics indicated that the Turkey produces 45 million tons of produce annually which places the country to the top of the listed countries, this potential has not been well fulfilled, with the fact that only 1.5 million tons of the total production find chances for export.

Export revenue of 683 million dollars in 2003 constitutes 70% fruits and 30% vegetables. Mandarins, lemons, oranges, cherries and grapes are the dominating fruits whereas tomato and green-pepper are the leading vegetables in export. Russia, Germany and Saudi Arabia are principle produce importers from Turkey.

Average age of the exporters is 12 years, the oldest being 41 years and the youngest is 2 years in business. 55% of the exporters are solely involved in export while 27% are multi-functional; grower-exporter-importer. 30% of the firms employ agricultural engineers. 27% of the traders have a land averaging 67.3 hectare totally reserved for export production. 95.8% of the production field are owned and the others are share-cropped. 24% of the firms investigated have quality control units, but only 6 % are accredited.

The most important 3 constraints hindering the export are; the bureaucracy which results in time-consuming procedures, competition between the exporters, and insufficiency and higher freight costs.

The investigated firms are in need; of export encouragement, financing and comprehensive foreign market investigations to increase their potential.