ICE in Japan to get a share from 75-billion dollar food imports
The delegation of İzmir Commodity Exchange (ICE) participated at FOODEX 2016, the largest food and beverage exhibition of Japan that is one of world's largest food importers, in order to seek new opportunities to take more shares from the Japanese market. The ICE delegation comprising Işınsu Kestelli, chairperson of the Board of Directors of ICE, Barış Kocagöz, president of the Assembly, Ercan Korkmaz, deputy chairperson of the Board of Directors, Ömer Gökhan Tuncer and Moiz Hemsi, deputy chairpersons of the Assembly, the Treasurer Bülent Arman, board members Tayfur Akın, Özhan Şen, İlhan Zincircioğlu, Şeref İyiuyarlar, the Secretary General Dr. Erçin Güdücü and the advisor to the chairperson Dilara Sürgü held important official talks during the visit in order to further improve commercial relations between the two countries.
Mr. Ahmet Bülent Meriç, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Türkiye to Japan, was visited in the first day of the visit. Musa Demir, the Chief Commercial Counsellor to Tokyo, accompanied the ICE delegation during the visit. Having expressed their pleasure to host the ICE delegation in Tokyo, Mr. Ambassador Ahmet Bülent Meriç exchanged views with the ICE board members, each of whom represents different agricultural sectors. Mr. Ambassador Meric stated that the absence of strong Turkish brands in Tokyo was a flaw and added, "The Japanese are a nation that loves exchanging gifts. Food products are very valuable here. There is great potential, in particular for products like figs in which we are quite strong. The Japanese love flashy packs. Therefore, we can obtain a strong position in this country with well-designed products and a good promotional campaign". Işınsu Kestelli, the chairperson of the ICE, said, "Izmir Commodity Exchange is the first commodity exchange in Türkiye. This year, we are celebrating our 125th anniversary. We have nearly 2000 members and a transaction volume of over 9 billion dollars in more than 109 agricultural products. We are a well-rooted institution that has carried out many firsts in Türkiye. One of our main objectives is to increase our members' share in global agricultural trade. Izmir, in this sense, is a city with very high potential".
Having stressed that the primary objective of ICE delegation in Tokyo was to participate at the FOODEX, one of world's largest food and beverage exhibitions, see in situ the global food trends and seize the possible opportunities for ICE members, Kestelli conveyed new information about the electronic marketplace project called "E-Commodity Bazaar" that was launched last year to increase the trade volume of the members to the portal and asked for support from Mr. Ambassador in getting Japanese business world to sign up to the platform. Kestelli said, "With this project, we aimed to create an alternative marketplace in the trading of agricultural and food products for primarily our members and all persons and companies that sign up to the system. We have signed cooperation agreements with many countries up until now. We want to increase the cooperation between the two countries by making efforts in this direction". Mr. Ambassador Meriç, expressing that he believed the platform would be very beneficial in increasing the trade volume between the two countries, noted that they would be happy to provide the necessary support on the issue.
After the embassy visit, the Izmir Commodity Exchange delegation attended the FOODEX Japan 2016 Food and Beverage Exhibition. Ensuring participation on different days during the exhibition, the ICE delegation met with representatives from countries such as Spain and France to introduce the E-Commodity Bazaar platform and exchanged views on possible cooperation opportunities. The ICE delegation also visited the stands of the ICE member companies and Aegean Exporters' Association in the exhibition.
Huge gap in Turkish - Japanese trade
Foreign trade relations between Türkiye and Japan clearly weigh against Türkiye. Although our import from Japan is roughly 3.14 billion dollars, we have exported only 334 million dollars. Türkiye's total foreign trade volume of 3.5 billion dollars is equivalent to 2.3 thousandths of the overall trade volume of Japan.
09.03.2016
