Miller Magazine Issue: 112 April 2019

42 NEWS APRIL 2019 thousand tons), Iran and Algeria (8 thousand tons). Commenting on the board’s perspective on Turkey and the world’s market, Ahmet Güldal said that agriculture and food sector have become more strategic because of population increase, urbanization, and climate changes. He said the cereal and pulses are among the basic food and thus they should be among the products that need to be given importance. Güldal said: “Turkey has a strategic position in the re- gion because of its geopolitical location. It is at crossing points for export and import regions of agricultural prod- ucts. CIS countries such as Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakh- stan, which are located in the north, have increased their pulses production and trade in the last 10-15 years. And they have been supplying products to a substantial part of the world. For example, Russia was a net cereal importer in the 1990s, and now it is the leading country in cereal exports. In particular, the US dominated the wheat mar- kets over time and changed the cereal trade balances. The countries in the south, North Africa and the Mid- dle East, are the largest cereal importers. In this context, around 415 billion dollars of product trade, which cor- responds to one-fifth of the world’s approximately 2 trillion dollar food and agricultural product exports, is realized around our country. Turkey, which is located in the middle of this trade, has evaluated its position well so far and has reached an important place in the export of end products. Significant progress has been achieved not only in wheat products but also in the export of poultry sector. As a matter of fact, our flour exports have dou- bled in the last ten years, our pasta exports have increased six times, and our exports of egg and white meat have increased four times. In the following process, we believe that the efforts to increase the exports of fin- ished goods in our country are impor- tant both in terms of the added value to be provided to our country’s econ- omy and to increase the value of Turkish products. On the other hand, Turkey’s strategic position should be utilized as an advantage for transit trade, by making logistic investments.” OUT OF 40 MILLION TON OF GRINDING CAPACITY, 18 MILLION TON IS USED “In the summit, Erhan Özmen, Chairman of Southeast Flour Industrialists Association, talked about “Flour Sector, Its Economy and the Future.” He said the following: You are in one of the youngest countries in the world. You are in a huge and very energetic country of 80 mil- lion with an average age of 29. As you know, this country has become a country that adds important value to the world’s flour trade. On the other hand, there is the ma- chine industry. Turkey’s machine technologies have great potential. This sector accomplishes ten percent of Turkey’s export. They reached an export volume of $16-17 billion. There are 715 facilities in Turkey, and the annual capacity of the flour industry has reached 40 million tons of wheat grinding level. While 475 plants with a capacity of 32 million tons are active, 240 plants with a capacity of 8 million tons became inactive, meaning closed down. The annual active capacity with 32 million ton has 18 mil- lion tons of grinding capacity. 14 million tons of wheat grinding, meaning 43 percent, is idle capacity. 13 million tons out of 18 million tons of wheat grinding, which is handled by 57 percent of our capacity, is used in the domestic market. The rest is, mean- ing 5 million tons equivalent to 28 percent, is exported. When we examine the world trade, it is seen that there is a market of 12 million tons. Turkey, which dominates the market for the last six years, carries out 3 million 500 thousand tons of flour export annually. After Turkey, Kazakhstan comes with 2 million 500 thousand tons and EU countries real- izes 1 million 500 thousand tons of flour export. The EU countries are followed by Ar- gentina, Ukraine, USA, Canada, and India. Erhan Özmen, Chairman of GUSAD Ülkü Karakuş, Chairman of Turkey Feed Industrialists Union