ArmInfo. Until quite recently, Turkish-grown tomatoes and cucumbers were sold on the Armenian domestic market, Chairman of the Armenian Association of Greenhouse Facilities Poghos Gevorgyan said at a consultation chaired by Armenian Agriculture Minister Ignaty Arakelyan.
The press office of the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture reports that the import of Turkish food products has been stopped; so has the trade with Turkish products on the Malatia farm market in Yerevan. At the same time, however, there are still some boxes of Turkish-grown tomatoes and cucumbers at storage houses and they regularly appear on the market.
Minister Arakelyan, in turn, noted that after the receiving the alarm the relevant structures immediately took the necessary measures, however, not only the state structures but also NGOs should take active part in this process to settle the problem cardinally.
Chairman of the Armenian State Food Safety Service Ishkhan Karapetyan suggested setting up an initiative civic service consisting of representatives of the Association of Greenhouse Facilities and submitting a written application to the State Revenue Committee to inspect the activities of the entity that imported the Turkish products.
"It is also necessary to consider the problem from the economic point of view, paying serious attention to enhancement of competitiveness of the local products so that they could be at advantage as compared to the imported ones," the minister said, also stressing the need to diversify the range of products.
Ishkhan Karapetyan called on the heads of greenhouse facilities to ensure the necessary volumes of high- quality and affordable agricultural products on the threshold of New Year holidays to rule out the need to import the products from Turkey.