‘‘Turkish Manufacturers Made Big Investments in the Yarn and Fabric Sector During the Pandemic’’

Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters’ Association (İTHİB), the umbrella organization of the Turkish textile industry, came together in Kahramanmaraş. In the organization held with the participation of ITHİB Chairman Ahmet Öksüz and board members, the present and future of the sector were evaluated. Stating that textile production in Turkey is among the leading countries in the world with its modern infrastructure and integrated production power, İTHİB Chairman Ahmet Öksüz pointed out that the textile industry has a strong production and export network in all sub-product groups.

78 Billion Dollar Production in Textile and Ready-to-Wear Industries

İTHİB President Öksüz stated that the sector differentiates itself with its strong production structure and continued his statements as follows: ‘‘In 2021, the production of the textile industry reached 49 billion dollars. In order to understand this figure more clearly, it is necessary to look at the past years. It was 38.2 billion dollars in 2018 and 38.1 billion dollars in 2019. The ready-to-wear sector produced 29 billion dollars in 2021. Thus, the production value of the textile and ready-to-wear sector increased to 78 billion dollars in 2021.’’

 ‘‘Investing Producers Should Be Protected Against Imports’’

Emphasizing that the sector, which has such a strong production structure, faces unfair competition against imported products, Öksüz remarked, ‘‘It is our national responsibility to increase exports and bring foreign currency to our country. However, our industry faces unfair competition in imported products. During the pandemic process, our manufacturers have made huge investments in the yarn and fabric sector. Thanks to these investments, while production capacity increased, it also provided great benefit in terms of increasing exports. While Turkish producers made such large investments, the intensive entry of dumped products into our country and the low additional customs duties applied to imported products left our producers in a difficult situation. This situation caused domestic production companies to face unfair competition. If urgent measures are not taken against these problems, a decline in production, which has reached a huge size of 78 billion dollars, will be inevitable.’’

‘‘2022 Exports Continue Unabated’’

Öksüz underlined that the sector still manages to increase exports with its strong production infrastructure and commented on export data. Öksüz used the following statements: ‘‘As the textile industry, we are not focused on a single market. Thanks to our export structure, we have an advantageous position both in European Union countries and worldwide. In 2021, we exported to 200 countries and regions, and as the textile industry, we broke the historical record of the Turkish Republic with exports of 12.9 billion dollars. Despite the inflation crisis in the world and the war situation, textile reached the highest periodic export figure of all time in the January-August period. Compared to the same period of the previous year, it realized an export of 8.7 billion dollars with an increase of 7.5 percent. In the first 8 months of the year, the countries with the highest textile exports were Italy with an increase of 18.2 percent, Germany with an increase of 1.5 percent and the USA with an increase of 12.9 percent.’’

‘‘Exhibitions Play an Important Role in Export Attacks’’

Expressing that the Turkish textile industry combines its logistics capability with its integrated production power, Ahmet Öksüz finalized his statements as follows, ‘‘In this way, we were able to successfully overcome the difficult challenges of the pandemic. Thanks to our efforts, we have once again proved that Turkey is the safest trade port. The exhibitions that we organized as İTHİB, our national participation organizations and trade delegations played an important role in the export breakthroughs we achieved. In the new period, our most important goal is to represent our industry in the best way with our strong projects. We aim to be one of the top 3 largest exporters in the world in the medium term with our delegations and exhibitions that will provide market diversity in exports, our projects and promotional activities that will increase added value.’’