Turkey is preparing to meet the needs of Japanese lemon juice ..

Mr Go Kojima, Investment Planning Manager of the company Toyota Tsusho Europe S.A., subgroup of the company Toyota visited the National Citrus Council (UTK). Mr Kojima told then that at the first stage, they were looking for suppliers of lemon juice to be imported to Japan, which is a country having a huge consumption of lemon juice and currently 85% of the annual needs are met by Argentina, Italy and Israel. He also declared that Turkey, which produced about 70 % of total citrus production of the Mediterranean region, should be a perfect candidate to meet Japanese needs in lemon juice.

Mr Kojima came to the region in order to investigate the agricultural conditions of the region onsite. He specified that in case the conditions would be suitable, the company could aim to make investments in Turkey in the food sector later on and that among the projects to be realized at long term, a plant with a capacity of 18,000 cubic meters per year of fresh and concentrated lemon juice could be built between Mersin-Adana region.

Mr Kojima also had the opportunity to meet Prof. Dr. Turgut Yeşiloğlu, Member of the Management Board of the Citrus Promotion Group and responsible of the project "Development of New Citrus Varieties” at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Çukurova University, to take information about the studies for new varieties and after then visited citrus orchards with Mr. Behçet Homurlu, Chairman of the association of Citrus producers, hosted by the Mediterranean Exporter Unions. He went on with the visit to the packing houses, to the Mediterranean Exporter Unions headquarters, where he could exchange views with the members of the management board of National Citrus Council. Mr. Mehmet Ateş and Enis Hekimoğlu, members of the National Citrus Council management board, together with Mr. Cengiz Gökçel, Management Board Chairman of the Chamber of Agriculture, gave him information about the production area, the citrus varieties, the production technologies and harvest periods.

During his first visit to Turkey, Mr Go Kojima, as Investment Planning Manager of the company Toyota Tsusho Europe s. a. company, participated in March, 26th 2014 to a meeting, presided by Mr. Ali Kavak, Citrus Promotion Group and Mediterranean Exporter Unions Management Board Chairman, with his project Assistant Mr. Max Rieg and the project manager of Turkey Investment Support and Promotion of the Prime Ministry of the Republic of Turkey.