Spices, one of the first products that travel the world through trade networks, are an important ingredient that has flavored our cuisine and culture for centuries. Spices which are used in many fields especially in nutrition, have been an important and expensive commercial commodity for a long time starting from ancient times and even in the 13th century, spices, which as valuable as gold therefore used as money, became a food additive. Spices are still a strategically important food additive and are an important product group that creates new employment channels in many sectors. Spice was born in the Far East and it has been adopted by the geography we live in in a short time and still maintains its high potential in World Trade today.
WORLD SPICE TRADE
Graphic 1: World Spice Exports in 2019 (Unit: USD – thousand)
Source: ITC Trademap database, http://www.trademap.org
Note: The graphic has been prepared with 0904, 0905, …0910 4 Gtip Codes
India took first place in the world spice export with 19% share. Turkey has 1.4% share in World Spice exports in 2019. While Turkey took 9th place in world spice exports in terms of quantity (Unit: Tons), took 14th place in terms of Unit/Dollar.
WORLD SPICE IMPORT
Chart 2: World Spice Imports in 2019 (Unit: USD – thousand)
In the chart above, which shows the top 10 countries in World Spice imports in 2019, the country that imports the most spices with 16.7% share was the United States and it has become a potential market for our country.
TURKEY’S SPICE EXPORT
Chart 3: Turkey’s Spice Exports in 2015 – 2019 (Unit: USD – thousand)
While the export of spice products in Turkey was 137,706,000 dollars in 2015, an increase of 139,855,000 dollars was observed in 2019 exports.
Graphic 4: Countries to which Turkey Exported Spices in 2019 (Thousand $)
According to the chart above, free zones take the first place with 21% share in Turkey’s Spice Exports in 2019, while the United Kingdom and Germany take the second and third place. The countries which our country exports spices are generally European countries.