ANKARA: Turkey earned revenues of over $28.73 million after exporting tea to 86 countries in 2016, according to Eastern Black Sea Exporters Association data. Turkish tea exporters’ revenue soared by 20.4 percent last year compared to the previous year, read the data. The volume of tea exports from the country increased by 11.4 percent to stand at around 6.67 million tons in 2016 compared to the previous year, the association said. Turkey exported around 6 million tons of tea and earned around $23.9 billion in return in 2015, according to the data. Belgium topped the list of Turkey’s tea exporting countries with more than 2.1 tons, worth $10.56 million, read the data.
“Turkey mainly exports to European Union member countries due to the vast majority of the Turkish population. Especially Turkish population in Belgium and Germany prefers Turkish tea,” Ahmet Hamdi Gurdogan, the chairman of the association, said. Gurdogan pointed out the impact of tea advertising activities helped the country to increase its tea exports. “One of the most important reason of tea export’s upward trend every passing year is CAYKUR’s, a leading tea producer company in Turkey, focus on advertisement activities. Also Turkish tea has an idiosyncratic taste increased the preferability of it,” Gurdogan added.
