Syria’s production of apricot expected to reach about 36 thousand tons

Damascus, SANA-The Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform has estimated that Syria produced about 36,324 to apricot this year.

In a statement to SANA, Director of Agrarian Production, Eng. Abdul-Moeen Qadmani said that Syria ranks 9^th in producing apricot on the international level and 3^rd on the Arab level after Morocco and Algeria.

Qadmani affirmed that the Ministry has taken several measures to develop and support apricot agriculture such as planting the saplings and distributing them among the peasants with low prices.

He added that the number of the apricot saplings produced from seeds last season reached 238,180 and they were sold at SYP 150 for each sapling while 49,320 grafted apricot sapling were sold at SYP 300.

Qadmani noted that the plan for the current includes producing 148 thousand apricot saplings from seeds and 51 thousand saplings of grafted apricot.

He indicated that the Agrarian Production Directorate has cooperation with the General Commission of Scientific Agricultural Research to produce grafted apricot saplings with high productivity which suit the Syrian environment.

Ruaa al-Jazaeri