Record in Textile Exports in the First Quarter of 2021
Jak Eskinazi, Head of Aegean Exporters ‘Associations Coordinator
Jak Eskinazi, Head of Aegean Exporters ‘Associations Coordinator and Chairman of the Board of Aegean Textile and Raw Materials Exporters’ Association, made the following statement regarding this success: ‘‘Despite all the negative developments in 2020, our union’s textile exports increased in 2020 compared to the previous year.
Despite the adverse effects of the troublesome pandemic period, we carried out an export volume amounting to 240 million US Dollars with an increase of 6 percent. Textile and ready-to-wear exports of our region increased by 1 percent from 1.5 billion dollars to 1.6 billion dollars. As ETHİB, we started 2021 with a 50 percent increase in our exports in January. We achieved an export increase of 65 percent in February and 81 percent in March.’’
Astronomical Increase in Aegean’s Medical Textile Exports
Eskinazi stated that the protection efforts of individuals against the Covid-19 virus increased the interest in medical textile products in 2020, and mentioned that the exports of medical textile products reached 1.4 billion US Dollars in 2020 with an astronomical increase of 2204 percent.
Eskinazi continued his statements as follows: ‘‘Medical technical textile exports of the Aegean increased by 4582 percent. Surgical dresses and masks, in particular, played a major role in the increase in medical technical textile exports. The total technical textile exports of Turkey increased by 76 percent in 2020 and reached an amount of 3 billion US Dollars. The technical textile exports of the Aegean Region, on the other hand, increased by 98 percent and reached an amount of 194 million US Dollars.
We have been carrying out the Ur-Ge Project for Increasing the Export Potential in the Technical Textile Sector since 2019, in partnership with our Ready-to-Wear Association. Within the scope of our Ur-Ge project, in order to improve the capacities of our companies in the field of medical protective and sports textiles, whose global demand is rapidly increasing with the pandemic, TEKSMER continues to provide ‘Protective and Medical Technical Textile Product Development Consultancy Services’ for six months for six companies participating in the project.’’
Domestic Production in Cotton Should Be Focused On
Jak Eskinazi explained that efforts have been focused on increasing domestic production with sector representatives in order to meet Turkey’s 1.5 million tons of cotton export. Eskinazi commented on the subject as follows, ‘‘We prepared a national television broadcast in cooperation with Çiftçi TV in order to explain the importance of cotton for the Turkish economy, textile and apparel exports in detail to the producers. In this way, we aimed to inform farmers before the cotton planting period and to encourage them to increase cotton production.’’