In 2015 the volume of hazelnut exports from Georgia, in the Caucasus region, decreased 2.5% in comparison with the previous year; the monetary value of exports also dropped to US $176.4 million (a decrease of 3.8 percent on the year). This is according to an official report, recently released by Georgia’s National Service for Statistics.
The drop in both categories happened after a successful year, when Georgian companies had shipped 8.4 thousand tonnes of hazelnuts for a total of US $62.5 million, corresponding to a 69.2 percent increase and 55.5 percent increase for the third quarter.
Last year, the nut category accounted for 8 percent of all Georgian exports. The main export markets for the product is Europe.
Exports to the Russian market in 2015 reached 1.4 thousand tonnes, or 3 times more than the results of 2014, and revenue grew by 2.7 times reaching US $10.7 million.