Textile Machinery Sector Increased Production Capacity and Sales
We conducted an interview with Adil Nalbant, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Textile Machinery and Accessories Industrialists Association (TEMSAD) for the January special issue of Tekstil Teknoloji magazine.
Adil Nalbant said that the textile machinery industry closed 2021 with export figures of approximately one billion dollars and emphasized that the textile machinery industry increased its production and sales capacities. Nalbant made the following evaluations on the subject; ‘‘As you know, our textile machinery sector closed 2021 with exports of 955 million dollars, and the supply chains broken in 2020 and 2021 with the effects of the pandemic had an impact in favor of Turkey’s textile and ready-to-wear sectors. In this way, very intensive textile investments were made.’’ Nalbant continued as follows; ‘‘As a result, 2.4 billion dollars of textile machinery imports were realized in 2021. Turkey became the world’s largest buyer, especially in the field of spinning (720 million dolars), weaving (421 million dolars), knitting (355 million dolars) and technical textile machinery (213 million dolars). Similarly, our textile machinery sector managed to increase its production capacity and sales in parallel with the positive developments in the textile industry and maintained its effectiveness in our target markets in exports.’’

Imports increased by 6.2% between January-October 2022
Evaluating the export figures for January-October 2022, Nalbant expressed that exports reached 772 million dollars. Stating that imports increased by 6.2% in the same period, reaching 2.03 billion dollars, Nalbant stated; ‘‘When we look at 2022, especially as of the second half of the year, we are going through a period in which capacities have decreased significantly due to the global slowdown and energy costs, and cost increases have forced manufacturers. In this period, our textile machinery manufacturers also experienced difficulties in terms of production costs. Our exports decreased slightly compared to the same periods of the previous year. In the January-October 2022 period, our exports amounted to 772 million dollars, a decrease of 2.1% compared to the same period last year. Our imports, on the other hand, increased by 6.2% in the same period, reaching 2.03 billion dollars. At the end of the year, it is expected to complete the year with an export of around 900 million dollars on average with a loss of about 5% and an import of close to 2.5 billion dollars with an average increase in imports of 6%.’’
Top 5 countries with the highest exports in 2021: Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran
Adil Nalbant indicated that Turkey continued to maintain its export strength in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt and Iran, which constituted the top 5 countries with the highest exports in Turkey in 2021; ‘‘We see that we have increased our exports to Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Russia and India more this year compared to 2021. In addition, our exports to Pakistan and Iran markets have decreased, and the problems of opening letters of credit in countries such as Pakistan and Egypt have negatively affected our exporter companies.’’
‘‘The most significant item of our exports is dyeing and finishing machines’’
‘‘Dyeing and finishing machines constitute the biggest item of our annual exports approaching one billion dollars,’’ said Adil Nalbant and added: ‘‘Our Turkish textile machinery sector shows its quality both locally and in our export markets, especially in dyeing and finishing machines. Dyeing and finishing machines constitute the biggest item of our annual exports approaching one billion dollars. They are produced with qualities that adapt to the needs of the current textile industry and observe environmental awareness. Technologies that minimize energy and water consumption and meet the needs within the scope of the EU green agreement are seen as one of the agendas of our companies in their R&D activities.’’
‘‘We inform our members to support domestic investments and projects’’
‘‘In our textile machinery sector, 22 members have R&D centers and 4 members have design centers. When we look at it, we see that these centers have been established especially in the last 5 years and intensive studies have been carried out on the efficiency of our machines.’’ said Adil Nalbant and continued; ‘‘Within the framework of KOSGEB and TÜBİTAK supports, we provide the necessary information and guidance to our members to support these domestic investments and projects, especially within the scope of the Technology-Oriented Industrial Move programs of our Ministry of Industry.’’
‘‘ITM 2022, one of the largest international exhibitions, was very successful’’
Adil Nalbant continued his remarks as follows: ‘‘The International Textile Machinery Exhibition (ITM 2022 Exhibition), which we held in June in our country, was very successful as one of the largest international fairs in this process where textile machinery manufacturers and the textile industry met after the pandemic process. It was an important event where neighboring countries and textile geographies could reach without visa problems, and domestic and foreign textile machinery manufacturers met with the textile industry after a long time. ITMA 2023 Exhibition, which is one of the important meeting points for the textile and textile machinery industry, will be organized next year. However, there is a preparation process under the influence of the known conjuncture, global energy problems and global economic uncertainties.
During the pandemic period, as a result of the supply chains broken in favor of the textile industry in our country, very intensive investments have been made in our country in the last 2 years. After the pandemic, issues such as the decrease in demand from EU countries, the distribution of existing demands to different geographies, increasing production costs, higher prices compared to competing countries’ markets, the tendency to import textile raw materials have unfortunately adversely affected our textile and ready-to-wear sectors in Turkey, which is one of the countries with the largest visitor profile of ITMA exhibitions.’’
‘‘For this reason, we do not think that ITMA 2023 will be realized with the expected efficiency in the period when the current contraction continues to affect the EU countries and global textile markets.’’ said Nalbant; ‘‘This situation is not only due to the stagnation in the textile and textile machinery sectors. The fact that visitors from both our country and textile regions such as Uzbekistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan cannot come to the exhibition, anticipating that the visa problems experienced in the previous period may continue in this period, is also among the factors affecting productivity.’’
‘‘We are conducting preliminary studies for new potential markets’’
In 2023, Nalbant emphasized that they will closely follow the sector exhibitions in their target markets and participate with their member companies; ‘‘We will continue our activities to increase the effectiveness of our companies in target countries such as Russia, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, in the regions where we continue to increase our export share, both with sector exhibitions and workshops. We are also doing preliminary studies for new potential markets by adding new ones to our collaborations with textile associations in 18 different countries.’’
Nalbant concluded his statements as follows: ‘‘We continue to advance our cooperation with important textile institutions and associations of our country regarding domestic textile machinery preferences and developable areas. Our deep-rooted experience in the textile industry and the collaborations with the textile industry have been one of the important factors in the development of our machines and the acquisition of new technologies. In addition, we believe that it is also important to advance public and university collaborations on behalf of our industry. A recent concrete example of this was the 1st National Textile Machinery and Systems Symposium, which we held in Bursa on October 20-21, 2021 with the theme of ‘Guide Textile with Your Own Technology’. At the symposium, we achieved result-oriented concrete outputs of textile machinery manufacturers, textile industry and university collaborations. With the continuity of our similar events, we think that with the support of the public, textile industry and universities, localization activities in our sector will increase, especially in import-intensive products.’’