ANKARA, Dec 24: Agriculture Minister Husnu Yusuf Gokalp said on Monday textile exporter Turkey’s annual cotton imports this year exceeded last year’s 400,000 tons.

Gokalp told a conference local cotton production, estimated to rise to 927,000 tons for 2001/02 (September-August) from 880,000 tons a year ago, was lagging behind demand from the textile export sector, the country’s top money maker.

The local cotton crop cannot meet the demand from textile producers, so the imports have risen, Gokalp said, but did not give an exact figure for this year’s imports.

Turkey is the world’s sixth-largest cotton producer.

Textiles products constituted nearly 35 per cent of Turkey’s total exports, expected to reach $30 billion this year, he said.

Turkey also imported an average 600,000 tons of sunseeds and 250,000 tons of raw sunseed oil every year, Imports of soyabeans and soyabean oil were about the same, respectively, Gokalp said.

The government is trying both to increase the production of these products through premium payments and also to protect the industries which use these as raw material, Gokalp said.

He reiterated the government’s pledge to continue in 2002 to subsidise with premium payments the production of cotton, sunseeds, rapeseeds, olives and soyabeans.—Reuters