BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 20
By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:
Azerbaijan completely stopped to export bee products in April due to the threat of the spread of coronavirus in the world, Chairman of the Azerbaijan Beekeepers Association Badraddin Khasratov told Trend.
"There was a problem with export of products to the EU countries as a result of the ban on import of animal products into the EU countries,” the chairman said. “The products were exported to our permanent markets through Turkey till 2019.”
“We suspended the export of products to this market in 2019 as the cost of supplying the products exceeds the income from export of products to Japan,” Khasratov added. “To solve this problem, the association appealed to the Food Safety Agency in 2019, but so far this problem has not been resolved."
“The manufacturers and exporters of honey had a big number of orders in April 2020 from the markets in Dubai, but delays in export-import operations caused a delay in export,” the chairman said. "We hope to export the products to the UAE soon,"
Touching upon the topic of the presentation of Azerbaijan’s bee products at the international level, the chairman emphasized that Azerbaijan ranked second in terms of honey quality among 300 types of such products at the exhibition in Qatar’s Doha city, in which the representatives of 150 countries participated.
“The representatives of the association participated in the contest for the first time and this is an excellent indicator for the first time,” Khasratov said. “The association ranked second at the exhibition by presenting May honey (Jerusalem thorn), which the bees collect from flowers, forest trees, bushes and meadow flowers.”
Today, the Azerbaijan Beekeepers Association, established in early 2016, unites 10,000 beekeepers and entrepreneurs in 50 districts of the country - 46 farms in districts and 4 farms in cities.
The main goals of the association are to develop beekeeping, resolve the current problems of beekeepers and work out a general concept for the development of beekeeping.
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