20 May 2010 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL
A third tender for the purchase of livestock that is to be carried out by the state-owned Meat and Fish Institution (EBK) today has drawn considerable interest from exporters in the US, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Iceland, Norway, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary.
Fifteen companies have notified the EBK of their participation in the tender in which the companies will compete to supply 8,000 tons, or 17,000 head, of cattle. The government recently decided to resume livestock and red meat imports through the EBK in a bid to curb problems related to an unprecedented rise in prices in the Turkish red meat market over the past few weeks. Following this decision, the EBK recently held two separate tenders to restart livestock imports to Turkey. In the first tender for the procurement of 4,025 tons, or 8,500 head, of cattle held earlier this month, the lowest bid in the tender came from Hacılar Türkiş Helal Gıda, a Turkish-owned German firm. The Jordanian-owned Khaled Hijazi submitted the lowest offer for the next day’s tender for the procurement of 5,000 tons of livestock, or 10,000 head of cattle. The EBK later cancelled both of the tenders, stating that they had “failed to benefit free competition in the market.” Observers have argued that the third tender will be successful in addressing the problem to an extent.The major factor behind the failure of the first two tenders, observers said, was the 10-day delivery time, which companies found “too short” to comply with. Taking such concerns into consideration, the EBK has increased the delivery time to 30 days in the third tender. Officials from the EBK said on Wednesday they expected that the bids in the third tender would be lower when compared to first two tenders. “This will help reduce prices in the domestic market,” they explained. The government had earlier said the imports would continue until prices in the country dropped to “reasonable levels.”
