Determining the Economic Contribution of Citrus Fruits to Türkiye's Foreign Trade with Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods

Citrus fruits account for one-third of Türkiye's fresh fruit and vegetable exports and are of great economic importance due to their wide range of uses. The objective of this study is to ascertain the citrus sub-products with the highest and lowest economic contribution to Türkiye's foreign trade for the period 2015-2024 using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. The LOPCOW method was used to weight the criteria, while the WASPAS method was used to rank the alternatives. According to the ten-year average results, the following criteria were used to determine the ranking (from highest to lowest): production quantity and import value, export quantity, export value, and import quantity. When considered on an individual basis, production quantity has been the most significant criterion from 2018 to the present. Based on the ten-year average, the ranking of citrus fruits with the highest economic contribution to foreign trade (from highest to lowest) was as follows: lemon, mandarin, orange, and grapefruit. Notably, there have been substantial shifts in the ranking over recent years, with oranges assuming the leading position in 2024. In order to increase the economic contribution of citrus fruits to foreign trade, it is necessary to increase production quantity while decreasing import value. To achieve this, the citrus production season should be spread throughout the year, storage infrastructure should be improved, market diversity should be prioritized, and the production of value-added and processed products should be increased.