Ups and downs in Turkish-Hungarian agricultural foreign trade

Hungary’s agricultural foreign trade with Turkey was like a rollercoaster ride in the last decade. For instance our agricultural export to Turkey was seven times bigger in 2010 than in 2009 and it doubled in 2011, but the possibility of the decline was already in the air. Suppliers abusing the Hungarian veterinary status and the documents certifying it destroyed our prestige. After this our cattle export – formerly our jolly joker in trading with Turkey – went into free fall and in 2013 Hungary’s agricultural export to Turkey was less than third of the 2012 level. Turkey is famous for its agricultural production (especially for its fruits and vegetables) and its economy is developing dynamically. Its main market is Europe, primarily the European Union. 18 percent of the land used for agricultural production is irrigated – this is an area that is almost as big as Hungary’s agricultural land in total (in Hungary only 2 percent of this land is irrigated). As regards our agricultural export to Turkey, in 2009 it represented a value of EUR 12 million but in 2010 we already exported EUR 54 million worth of livestock and cereal crops in the value of EUR 10 million. Our export doubled in 2011 and then came the decline mentioned above. At the beginning of the decade 85-95 percent of our agricultural export to Turkey was cereal crops. From the middle of the decade our export structure diversified a little and by 2008 cereal crops’ share was down at 50 percent, with the other half being oily seeds, meat, cereal products, frozen vegetables, ready meals, drinks and food industry by-products. In 2010 unprocessed products became dominant once again; in 2011 when our export doubled from EUR 80.1 million to EUR 165.4 million, the key driver of growth was that we sold 2.6 times more live cattle to Turkey (in the value of EUR 140.9 million and 43,000 tons in volume). We won’t be able to regain the trust of Turkey from one day to another, but this has to be our main goal: getting back our live cattle export market. This would be important from a national economy perspective as well, since agriculture has been responsible for half our economy’s foreign trade for years. The recently organised Turkish-Hungarian business forum and the two governments’ intention to cooperate, which has been declared many times by both sides, will hopefully put trade between the two countries back on track.

Dr. Szabó Jenő
agrárközgazdász