YEREVAN. – Turkey subsidizes its exporters (including fruit dealers) in violation of the WTO rules, businessman Georgios Frangistas told Armenia News – NEWS.am.

Frangistas, who is the head of marketing at a major Greek fruit exporter, Gefra, and the president of Incofruit, the Association of Greek Export enterprises for fruits vegetables and juice, added that this could help Turkish producers, if relations between the two countries were improved and trade flows restored.

An obvious advantage is the exchange rate as both Russia and Turkey are dollar countries in their external trade. But there is also another major factor: Turkey has – against WTO agreements – export subsidies, while EU producers do not, he said.

As for Greece, prior to introducing the embargo, the country used to ship to Russia large quantities of strawberries and kiwi, as well as stone fruit. After the embargo official business collapsed and some companies on both sides attempted to bypass the trade barrier by transiting through the third countries and/or changing invoices.

“I suppose some fruit made it through, but clearly no significant trade can exist under such conditions”, the businessman said.

Should the embargo be lifted, the Greek produce will have a hard time returning to their past share in Russian market, as Russian importers will have forged new relationships and have found new suppliers in new countries.

“I think we cannot hope for a larger foothold on the Russian market.  First the embargo must be lifted and after a few years of rebuilding a market share we will see our progress and then we hopefully will be able to plan for the future”, he concluded.