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Georgia eyes increasing hazelnuts production

Georgia Materials 27 August 2021 10:20 (UTC +04:00)
Georgia eyes increasing hazelnuts production

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 27

By Klavdiya Romakayeva - Trend:

Hazelnut production in Georgia must increase, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said, Trend reports referring to Georgian media.

According to the information, Georgia is currently one of the five largest producers of hazelnuts, yielding positions to Turkey and Italy.

“Our task should be to step by step take second place in just a few years. We have an ambitious plan and vision to make Georgia the second-largest hazelnut producer in the world,” Garibashvili said.

The prime minister made this statement a month before the local elections, during the election campaign in the Samegrelo region, where hazelnuts are actively grown.

Hazelnuts are among the main export goods of Georgia - hazelnuts are exported mainly to the EU countries Germany and Italy, as well as to its neighbors Armenia and Russia.

For six months, from August 1, 2020, to February 9, 2021, Georgia exported 15,600 tons of hazelnuts worth $81.2 million.

The volume of exports of hazelnuts during the reporting period doubled, by 5,200 tons compared to the volume of exports for the same period of 2019/2020, in monetary terms, the value of exports increased by $27.7 million (52 percent).

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, since 2016, as a result of the spread of marble bugs and fungal diseases, the production of hazelnuts and their exports began to decline, and in 2018 they reached a minimum level of 17,000 tons.

After the state pest control campaign, a bountiful and high-quality harvest of nuts was harvested in Georgia already in 2020.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @romakayeva

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