ANKARA: Turkey has officially sent the information on duties on Russian goods to the Russian Agriculture Ministry, Vesti.ru reported referring to local media. Thus, Russia was removed from a duty-free import program for agricultural products. Turkish importers and processors could carry out duty-free import of Russian products to Turkey on the basis of issued licenses for import of agricultural products in the “internal processing” mode. Now, a 130-percent duty is in effect on such Russian exports as wheat and corn, rice – 45 percent, sunflower oil – 36 percent, sunflower meal – 13.5 percent, and more than 9.5 percent – for legumes. The Federal Center for Evaluating the Quality and Security of Grain reported that, from the beginning of the previous season through March 20, Russia exported to Turkey 31.7 million tons of grain and products for grain processing, 2.1 million tons of wheat (46.6 percent of all Russian wheat exports) and 431,400 tons of corn (9.4 percent of all Russian corn exports). Of the total amount of Russian sunflower oil exports this season (1.1 million tons), 370,000 tons went to Turkey, reported the Institute of the Agrarian Market.
Perhaps, Russian sunflower and legumes will still be exported to Turkey, but obviously supplies will be much less profitable, said Dmitry Vostrikov, director of development of the association of manufacturers and suppliers of food products “Rusprodsoyuz” in an interview with Izvestia. Now Russia exports wheat to more than 80 countries, according to the Russian Agriculture Ministry. “To date, significant efforts by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rosselkhoznadzor are aimed at increasing grain exports, expanding the list of exported grain crops to traditional importers of North Africa and the Middle East, as well as promoting domestic grain to new promising markets in Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and the countries of Caribbean, Africa,” the ministry added. The Turkish government didn’t comment, but the country’s export associations say Ankara’s actions are a response to Moscow’s failure to lift restrictions on Turkish agricultural products sold to Russia. For example, there’s still a ban on tomato imports to Russia, 60 percent of which previously came from Turkey. “We neither accept nor deny the attempts to pressure Russia in order to give Turkish agricultural products access to the Russian market in those sensitive areas where in the last years Russian production has been developing,” said Russian Agricultural Minister Alexander Tkachev on March 22, rbth.com reported.
Previously, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that duties imposed on Russian wheat and corn by Turkey will not affect the normalization process of bilateral relations. Food imports from Turkey were blocked in response to the downing of a Russian jet in Syria in late 2015. There were other restrictions, including the cancellation of charter flights to Turkey, the introduction of a visa regime, and a ban on hiring Turkish citizens. Russian travel agencies suspended sales of package tours to the country. Moscow-Ankara relations began to improve after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized over the jet incident. Russia lifted the flight ban, but the food ban has remained. Russia earlier announced that it will keep the ban on Turkish frozen meat and poultry as well as tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, apples, pears, strawberries and other fruit and vegetables. In March, Rosselkhoznadzor lifted the restrictions against Turkish onions, cauliflower, broccoli and some other vegetables, explaining there is a lack of these food items in Russia.
