The fact that ferry services will start again on May 1 after a 9-year break from Trabzon to Sochi made the exporters in Trabzon happy.
Trabzon-Sochi ferry services, which were made intensively between 1992-2008 from Trabzon, and were completely abolished in 2014 due to the restriction imposed after 2008 and the decrease in interest in sea travel since 2010, start again on May 1, 2023.
Making evaluations on the subject, Eastern Black Sea Exporters' Association (DKİB) Vice Chairman of the Board Ahmet Hamdi Gürdoğan said that the resumption of ferry services means an increase in trade and exports in Trabzon. “I hope it happens. Because ferry means having cargo with passengers. It means an increase in trade and exports in Trabzon. Up to 10 thousand Euros, passengers can be taken together without any documents. Therefore, with the new customs law enacted in Turkey, all tradesmen in Trabzon will be able to sell export-oriented goods. Although this will not be reflected in the figures of exports, it will bring mobility to Trabzon. In addition to Arab tourism, we can say that it will have a great impact on Trabzon trade and the amount of income per capita will increase. The arrival of people escaping from the war will reduce the density at the Sarp gate, and therefore they will be able to come in a much shorter time. In addition, although there is a Ro-Ro service at the door, since the flights are expensive, they will be able to go to both our region and the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts to spend their holiday with small cars and ferries, and return to their countries very comfortably. Therefore, we can say that it will contribute a lot to tourism. We really want this to be a start for our region and province, to continue and to increase the number of expeditions."
"We have 30 Ro-Ro ships in Trabzon"
Noting that there are 30 Ro-Ro ships in Trabzon, Gürdoğan said, “We have 30 Ro-Ro ships in Trabzon. Besides, we have container ships. All of our container ships are leaving. When we look at Trabzon exports, we can see that 400 million dollars of exports are made from Samsun port and their headquarters are here. This is how advanced the exporters from Trabzon are in the shipping sector and at the same time, we are transporting with trailers at the dozvolan, which we call a transit document to Turkey. Since the number of dozvola in Turkey is around 10-12 thousand (They have increased it to 20 thousand now) because we gave it to Russian trucks, we, the exporters from Trabzon, also paved the way for Turkish trucks to go to Russia. The public in Turkey doesn't know much about this, but every trailer we carry comes to Turkey as a dozvola (transition document). We can say that this document, which we call dozvola, has reached a value of 3-4 thousand dollars when it comes to it."