Turkish trucks stuck at Russian border face risk of losing market

Exporters, who are facing the risk losing the market due to delayed orders, are also obliged to pay a waiting bill, as much as 1,000 euros per truck per day, Turkish business daily Referans reported.Â

 

Trucks are being held up at customs posts for up to four weeks at border crossings in Novorossiysk, Sochi and Taganrog, on Ukraine's border with Russia, said Ahmet Calikoglu, a commercial attache at the Turkish consulate-general in Novorossiysk on Wednesday.

 

About 100 trucks are now waiting in Novorossiysk, Calikoglu said adding that the trucks are mostly carrying consumer goods such as clothing, food and construction materials.

 

The Turkish Trade Ministry said the truck delays could cost Turkey as much as $3 billion in export revenues, Bloomberg reported. Turkey has protested to Russia, its biggest trading partner.

 

Some market insiders linked the delays to political tensions with Russia. Moscow was punishing Turkey for bypassing Russia through BP's Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Stuart Hackett, a trader at Ekspres Invest Istanbul told the MoscowTimes.com on Wednesday. "Turkey wants to continue trade with Russia, and that's being pressured," Hackett added.

 

However Calikoglu said he saw no political link with the increased inspections and expected matters to improve by next month.

 

Russia is the biggest market outside the European Union for Turkish goods, with $4.9 billion of exports last year, according to data from the Turkish Assembly of Exporters.