Record tangerine harvest predicted

The 2009 tangerine harvest is projected to be almost 3 times greater than it was last year, at 90,000 tonnes. This is a challenge for the state as it will have to take very serious and timely measures to process and sell the entire harvest.

Since losing the Russian market the major target for Georgian tangerines has been Ukraine but due to the financial crisis purchasing capacity in this country has gone down. Prices are high because of the expense of ferry transportation and as this is the only way of transporting goods to Ukraine forwarding companies take advantage for this and charge very high prices.

There are also problems in tangerine processing. Investments need to be made to make it run at full capacity. As a first step the state should put serious restrictions on importing tangerines into Georgia and it should export local tangerines to neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan.