Export Champions of the Textile Industry Awarded
ITHIB rewarded successful textile exporters who contributed to exports of 11.6 billion dollars in 2023. The award ceremony, hosted by ITHIB Chairman of the Board Ahmet Öksüz, was attended by Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya, General Manager of Exports of the Ministry of Commerce, Çetin Tecdelioğlu, Deputy Chairman of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) and many guests.
Stating that the engine of growth for Turkey in the coming period will be exported, Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya, General Manager of Exports of the Ministry of Commerce, underlined that as a ministry, they provide very important support to exporters. Stating that there is a great interest in the recent fairs and that Istanbul is going one step further every day towards becoming an international exhibition center, Kılıçkaya said, “We will support domestic fairs more strongly. We will establish the legislation and infrastructure for this as soon as possible. I want to give the good news of this.”
EMPHASIS ON CROSS-BORDER E-COMMERCE AND GREEN DEAL
Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya, who also touched on the issue of cross-border e-commerce in his speech, called on exporters not to miss this issue. Kılıçkaya said, “As the Ministry, we have prepared packages that support cross-border e-commerce very strongly, and we organize events and fairs. We invited the 30 most powerful marketplaces in the world to the event we organized last week, and they came. Around 3,000 meetings were held. I recommend that you closely follow the activities of our Ministry at this point.”
“WE WILL REACH OUR TARGETS QUICKLY WHEN CONDITIONS NORMALIZE”
Pointing out that the Turkish textile industry is one of the sectors that we have become a brand all over the world with its exports to 200 countries and regions, Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) Deputy Chairman Çetin Tecdelioğlu noted that it also provides great services to the perception of ‘Made in Turkey’ and strengthens the Turkish brand with its quality. Tecdelioğlu said, “Last year, 29 thousand exporters exported in the textile and ready-to-wear sectors. The total exports of our two sectors exceeded 29 billion dollars. In the 8 months of this year, we reached 18 billion dollars. Turkey differs from other countries in textile and ready-to-wear production with its quality, speed, and flexible production capability. In particular, our geographical proximity to Europe, fast delivery, and environmentally friendly production processes make us a preferred supplier in global markets. In the long term, we have an export target of 40 billion dollars in the ready-to-wear sector and 20 billion dollars in the textile sector. I believe that we will reach these figures quickly with the normalization of conditions.”
“WE MUST STRENGTHEN OUR PLACE ON THE WORLD STAGE WITH OUR BRANDS”
Mentioning that it is time to write new stories in the sector, Ahmet Öksüz said: “We should spend much more effort on branding, make investments with global brand and company acquisitions or partnership model, and think more globally. We need to set new roadmaps for branded exports. So, why do we call branded exports and emphasize added value? While the U.S. import unit price of woven fabrics worldwide is 6.7 dollars, the import unit price in Turkey is over 7 dollars. While the import unit price of the European Union in home textiles is around 6.8, the import unit price in Turkey is around 10 Euros. In fact, as the textile industry, we have a high value-added production structure and infrastructure. The more the number of ready-to-wear brands opening up to the world increases, the more support is provided to global brand partners, and the stronger the textile and ready-to-wear industry will be. The current situation is now narrow for our textile and ready-to-wear sectors. I mean, this shirt tightens to us. In addition to being a qualified supplier of brands, we must strengthen our place on the world stage with our brands.”
A TOTAL OF 563 AWARDS AWARDED
At the ‘ITHIB Stars of Export 2023 Award Ceremony’; 3 stars, 27 platinum, 22 gold, 73 silver, 267 bronze and 171 achievement awards found their owners. Ak-Pa Tekstil İhracat Pazarlama AŞ., Aksa Akrilik Kimya San. A.Ş. and Kordsa Teknik Tekstil A.Ş. were the companies that stood out at the ceremony with the star awards they received.
