‘IGM 2022 is the Best Platform for Domestic Machinery Manufacturers to Open Up to the World’
Ogün Özol, General Manager of EPA Teknoloji
Ogün Özol, General Manager of EPA Teknoloji, met with visitors at the IGM 2022 Exhibition, with its wide range of products. Özol stated that the exhibition was very productive for the Turkish garment and ready-to-wear industry, especially for their own companies. We interviewed with Ogün Özol for our Tekstil Teknoloji magazine.
What are your views on the contributions of the IGM 2022 Exhibition to the sector?
For the last 3-4 years, international exhibitions have not been held due to the pandemic and have almost come to a standstill. Before that, we participated in ITM 2021, which was a pretty successful organization. After that, we took place in the IGM 2022 Exhibition, which has been a trademark in the international community with 27 years of history. When we look at the visitor portfolio, we see that there are visitors especially from abroad. this made us happy. As a company, We also made a contribution to exports. IGM 2022 is the shortest and most effective way for domestic manufacturers like us to open up to the world and to increase the its export volume.
What are your expectations from the IGM 2022 Exhibition?
We want to expand into new markets, introduce our new machines to our existing customers and increase the awareness of our company. We aim to increase our export volume and open up to the world market. Thanks to IGM, many visitors came and we achieved results beyond our expectations in terms of collaborations.
What are the products you introduced at the IGM 2022 Exhibition? Can you provide information about their areas of use and your customer portfolio?
This year, we organized our booth in two different ways. In one of them, we offer solutions for ironing machines and shirt manufacturing under our main brand Epa Teknoloji. In the other booth, we exhibited the machines we make on technical textiles under the name Toria. Apart from this, we have an ironing system that appealed to logistics companies. We was pleased with the intense interest of visitors from abroad.
Turkey, one of the world’s largest textile producers, is also among the top 5 countries in the garment and ready-to-wear sector. What would you say about the position of the garment and ready-to-wear sector today?
Turkey has such an advantage. We are in an accessible place, especially in terms of geographical location. When we consider the consistency in our country, foreign countries do not see any threat or inconvenience in giving their products to Turkey. In our country, there is also the production of all kinds of materials for garment. In some countries, there is a production based on cheap labor, but there is no sub-industry and materials. But this is not the case in Turkey. We have the potential to produce both fabric and machinery locally in Turkey.
What are your predictions about garment trends and innovations in the near future? As a company, what kind of preparations are you making for new trends?
In particular, the garment industry is evolving towards technical textiles and is moving in this direction. From this point of view, there is a great interest in outdoor clothing. We think that there will be a lot of important investment in technical textiles in the next year.
