For more than one year Saudi Arabia has laid an unofficial boycott on Turkish goods, even denied the fact. This unpronounced breakup affected not only Turkish manufacturers, especially of perishable foods, which continued to ship their products, but also Saudi importers, when their orders were kept at the custom for weeks. 1 October the embargo became official.
Last year Saudi Arabia imported Turkish products in value of 3,1 billion dollars, mostly construction materials, chemicals, fruits - vegetables, furnitures, garments and carpets.
Saudi government choosed to reflect its political dissatisfactions to the trade relations between countries and first of all this hurts its own consumer. Customers were used to Turkish products, they were satisfied with their quality and low prices. However, they can’t buy them anymore. Traders are under pressure, they are forced not to import any product from Turkey or to trade any product made in Turkey. For consumer is easy to guess that a simple ‘’Don’t buy’’ must be enough, cause living in Saudi Arabia he got used to follow the interdictions without judgement.
Some sources claim that Saudi Arabia is using such radical methods for forcing the country to start producing its own goods. This is not an irrational assumption. As long as they could import a product cheaper than its local production costs, production seemed to be quite a unreasonable activity and risky investment. Exactly until the financial crisis, created by low oil prices along with pandemic recession. That time they probably realised how hard is to depend on single source of income and to be addicted to import.
Whatever the reason, the innocent Saudi citizen, far away from any political insinuations, was deprived of some affordable products, TV dramas and then have to learn to spell ‘’Greek burger’’ instead of ‘’Turkish burger’’. Mashallah.
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