Turkey supplies a ton of food to Qatar

Qatar, which has been enduring tough times after some Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, initiated a blockade against the country, has received food supply from Turkey via 15 flights from İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport so far.

It has been five days since the food supply started to be shipped to overcome the possible food and water shortage in the country targeted by the sanctions. The first step of the foodstuff shipped to Qatar included milk and milk products. No official statement has been made regarding the total amount of foodstuff sent to Qatar. The shipment, which even includes daily milk, has reached an economic size of nearly TL 5 million in only five days. Taking in to account the Turkish Airlines A330 cargo aircraft load-carrying capacity of 65 tons, it is claimed that almost a ton of foodstuff was shipped to Qatar from Turkey.

Twitter users from Saudi Arabia initiated a boycott campaign on Turkish goods. The social media campaign against Turkey, that started in the aftermath of Turkey’s decision to send troops and food aid to Qatar, turned in to an action of sharing the photos of Turkish goods that are sold in the country.

In thousands of tweets on the issue, users called to boycott the Turkish television series that are viewed with great interest in the country. Some users even called citizens to refrain from traveling to Turkey.

The Turkish products were rapidly put on the shelves of Qatari markets. The exchange rate for the Qatari Riyal and Turkish Lira are almost equal. But the products are sold with a price difference of nearly 30 percent.

For instance, while a carton of Sütaş milk is sold at TL 2.96 ($0.83) in Turkey, the same product is sold at TL 3.88 in Qatar. The price difference between the countries results from the transportation cost.