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"According to the president of the Turkish Exporters Assembly, Mehmet Buyukeksi, olive oil and olive exports should reach $300 million this year and are predicted to increase by nearly 100% in 2012 and to reach $5 billion by 2023. Buyukeksi was speaking at the Third Akhisar Harvest Festival at the weekend, and has hopes that this increase in exports will help reduce the country's current account deficit. Olive oil is particularly important to this region, and as well as trying to increase exports it is helping to create its own regional trademark. Akhisar, which is in the western province of Manisa, has 12 million olive trees which is the largest number in Turkey.
The Ministry of Agriculture provided incentives to help increase the production of olive oil and olives in Turkey, which is currently number five in the world for olive oil production and number four in the world for the number of olive trees. It takes three years before olive trees to produce a harvest, and due to the number of newly planted trees it's expected that production will more than triple during the next few years.
According to another Turkish Exporters Assembly member, Ali Nedim, the technology and production facilities are far better in Turkey than in Spain and Italy, and it's expected that Turkey will become the second-largest producer within the next couple of years as it will have an output of 800,000 tons of olives and 600,000 tons of olive oil. Becoming such a large producer will enable Turkey to have a say in setting prices. At the moment Turkey exports to 62 countries, and is currently trying to secure further rural development support from the government to help the sector become even more competitive against European Union countries.
