Partial Removal of Turkish Obstacle to Import of Armenian Goods?

Vahe Sarukhanyan

hetq
12:08, October 21, 2011

According to Mustafa Edib Yilmaz, business editor of the Turkish daily
Today’s Zaman, the volume of trade between Armenia and Turkey today is
considered to be around 400 million dollars, which is an figure.

Yilmaz hopes that in the event of the borders opening, the volume of
trade will increase to ten times this number. Zumrut Imamoghlu, an
expert at the center of economic and social research at Istanbul’s
BahçeÅ?ehir University, expressed feeling surprise upon learning that
the import of goods from Armenia was prohibited.

Turkey does not prohibit this import officially, but the strict
policies in place at Turkish customs points against Armenian importers
make it pointless for them to try and bring any Armenian goods into
the country. Also, Turkey currently does not allow the entry of
vehicles with more than 16 passenger seats into the country, if they
have Armenian license plates. This means that Armenians bringing
goods from Turkey back home need to either use a number of vans, or
use large buses with Turkish license plates, the likes of which
regularly travel from Yerevan and back. In both cases, the winner is
Turkey.

Therefore, it is possible to say that the 400 million dollars of trade
is, in reality, mostly one-way traffic. However, based on information
made available to Hetq, the two member countries of the Black Sea
Economic Cooperation organization are currently in negotiations to
move towards a simplified procedure to allow trade by up to 200
freight trucks annually, moving from Armenia through Georgia to Turkey
and back. An agreement to this effect exists between the BSEC
members, but it has not yet been implemented due to a lack of
diplomatic relations between the countries.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress