SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – When Kurdish businessman Faraydoon Salih loaded up a few tons of Hawraman pomegranates and set off for Dubai, he was betting on the quality of a fruit he knew had few rivals.
The sweet, juicy and wine-red pomegranates put entries from other countries at a Dubai fair to shame.
“Hawraman pomegranates ranked the tastiest and highest quality among pomegranates from 93 other countries,” Salih proudly says.
“Among pomegranate from all other countries our pomegranates, Indian pomegranate and to some extend Iranian pomegranates, were in demand by buyers from other countries,” he says.
“Hawraman pomegranate, like Indian pomegranate, is one of the highest in quality and sales in world markets,” Salih told Rudaw.
In order to cash in on the wonder fruit, at the beginning of this year Salih and another Kurdish businessman established the Mexak Company, whose goal is to introduce agricultural products from Hawraman to the outside world.
Now, Mexak has 200 tons of pomegranates ready for export.
But while the demand is in place, the logistics of getting the fruit to eager consumers are not.
“Unfortunately, we cannot export the produce directly from Kurdistan, because we don’t have cargo planes at Kurdistan airports.
“The produce must be transported via Amman and Beirut, and this adds to the cost,” he added. “This difficulty in transporting the goods has been a hurdle,” he said.
Pomegranates from Hawraman and Sharazoor can meet demand from the entire Sulaimani province.
The two regions are famed for their pomegranate, and for other fruits like grapes and apples.
In 2010, Mexak introduced Hawraman pomegranates at an agricultural fair in Britain, where the fruit again came out top among entries from dozens of other countries.
“Now, Hawraman pomegranates are well known in Britain, Dubai and other international markets,” Salih says.
“There is also demand as far away as the United States. American companies are willing to pay $8,000 dollars for each ton of our pomegranate,” Salih says, but adds that due to high transportation costs his company was “unable to reach an agreement with American companies.”
