The Turkish government has partially lifted its ban on olive oil exports following intense lobbying from the sector, Olive Oil Times wrote.
Turkish producers would now be able to export 50,000 tonnes of bulk olive oil until 1 November, the 12 June report said.
However, with forecasts of a bumper harvest in 2024/25, the sector continued to call for the ban to be lifted completely, Olive Oil Times wrote.
Welcoming the move, Aegean Olive and Olive Oil Exporters’ Association (EZZIB) chairman Mehmet Emre Uygun was quoted as saying it would boost producers’ income by US$300M (€279M).
According to EZZIB data, Turkey currently has 200,000 tonnes of olive oil stocks.
While producers, exporters and their associates welcomed the announcement, they said it did not go far enough.
Introduced in August in a bid to lower prices, Uygun said the bulk export restrictions had brought no benefit to consumers while nearly doubling olive oil prices.
“While our exports were 150,000 tonnes in the 2022/23 crop year, they declined around 70% in the seven month period in 2023/24,” he told local media.
“Exporters were not the only ones who suffered due to the injunction. The producers suffered a loss of income because they could not sell their products to export.”
Although the latest ban followed previous restrictions introduced in March 2021 and April 2022, the current ban had been in place longer, Olive Oil Times wrote.
Calling on the government to lift the ban, Istanbul Commodity Exchange chair Ali Kopuz was quoted as saying Turkey had twice the amount of olive oil it needed to supply the domestic market.
“Bulk olive oil exports were banned, taking into account the yield and stock situation,” Kopuz told local media. “In this way, the domestic market was successfully regulated, and our [individually packaged] olive oil exports doubled compared to the previous season.”
However, new crop expectations and stocks showed that Turkey had approximately twice as much olive oil as it needed in the domestic market, he added.
The EZZIB has forecast production to reach 400,000 tonnes in 2024/25, slightly below the record high yield in the 2022/23 crop year but significantly above the previous year’s harvest.
Combined with existing olive oil stocks and production from Afrin, a region in northern Syria occupied by Turkey, Uygun estimated that the country could have 650,000 tonnes of olive oil available by the end of the harvest.
“If bans are left behind, we believe we will reach the export target of US$1bn (€932M) for the first time in our history in the 2024/25 crop year,” Uygun said.
