According to EastFruit analysts, unfavorable weather conditions currently observed in the Malatya region of Türkiye could have a huge impact on the global dried fruit market and the regional fresh apricot market.
The Turkish city of Malatya is known as the “apricot capital of the world” since up to 80% of Turkish apricot production is concentrated here. By the way, this gave Malatya the name kayısı diyarı (“apricot kingdom”). At the same time, Türkiye is the world’s largest exporter of dried apricots by a large margin from other countries and the largest global exporter of fresh apricots as well. Therefore, the weather in the region has a direct impact on the prices of dried fruits in the world, as well as on the prices of fresh apricots during season.
“This year apricots began to bloom early in the Malatya region, and now are in full blossom. However, it rained here throughout the previous week, which negatively affected plant pollination, and now air temperatures at night drop to almost zero degrees Celcious. This will undoubtedly negatively impact the quality and volume of the apricot harvest in Türkiye in 2024,” says Bakhtiyor Abduvohidov, an international fruit and vegetable business expert.
The region is really experiencing some bad luck in the recent seasons. In February 2023, the city suffered enormous damage as a result of an earthquake. The apricot plantations and the infrastructure for its handling also got affected.
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Let us remind you that Türkiye is the world’s largest exporter of fresh apricots by volume. In 2022, this country exported 97 thousand tons of fresh apricots, surpassing Spain. Main markets for Turkish apricоts are: Russia, Iraq, Ukraine, Romania and Saudi Arabia. When it comes to dried apricots, Türkiye surpasses all its competitors by a huge margin, earning almost half a billion US dollars from exports. At the same time, the main markets for dried apricots from Türkiye are the different from fresh and include: USA, Germany, France, Great Britain and Australia. Thus, these developments could indeed have a major global impact.
