TIM Chairman Gülle: Ready-to-Wear Exports Will Exceed 20 Billion Dollars
According to the statement from TIM, the Turkish export family continued its success in many sectors, despite the contraction in global demand caused by the new type of coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, restrictions in important markets, and a significant decrease in consumption in some sectors.
TIM, being the unique umbrella organization for 61 exporters union, 27 sectors, and 100 thousand exporters, continues its efforts to let Turkey reach its target to be a country having a foreign trade surplus. Despite the challenging circumstances of the devastating pandemic outbreak, the total exports in 2020 were realized well over the target set in the New Economic Program and amounted to 165.9 billion US dollars.
Turkey’s exports in 2020 were 169 billion 514 million US Dollars. While exports of 184 billion US Dollars are targeted this year, which is the first year of the new normal in the post-pandemic period, the ready-to-wear industry was the third among all sectors with an export figure of 17 billion 143 million US Dollars last year.
The sector exported the most to Germany with 3.1 billion US Dollars.
‘‘We have high expectations in ready-to-wear’’
In the statement, TIM President Gülle, who gave his speech at the Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Sector Board Meeting held in Bursa, indicating the following, ‘‘In the last quarter of 2020, we carried our exports to over 50 billion US Dollars. We need to maintain this ambition and performance. At this point, we have great expectations from our ready-to-wear industry, which has achieved significant success in the last months of 2020. The all-time export record of 1 billion 850 million US Dollar reached by our industry in October reveals that we can do much better.’’
‘‘Sector exports to the USA amount to 793.6 million dollars’’
Gülle stated that although the exports of the sector experienced a slight decrease in 2020, it amounted to 17.14 billion US Dollars by the end of 2020 and the share of ready-to-wear in the country’s exports exceeded 10 percent.
Stating that the ready-to-wear industry has succeeded in increasing its exports in the 8th of last year’s 12 months, Gülle continued his explanations as follows, ‘‘In 2020, the ready-to-wear industry succeeded to export amounting to more than 100 million US Dollars to the following countries; to Canada with an increase of 50 percent to 100.8 million US Dollars, to Kazakhstan with an increase of 38 percent to 221.4 million US Dollars, to the Czech Republic with an increase of 25 percent to 124.6 million US Dollars, and to the USA with an increase of 23 percent to 793.6 million US Dollars.’’
‘‘We expect the exports to exceed 20 billion US Dollars this year’’
Expressing that they expect the ready-to-wear industry exports to exceed 20 billion US Dollars this year, Gülle continued as follows, ‘‘Our ready-to-wear industry succeeded in exporting apparel amounting to 793.6 million US Dollars to the USA, with an increase of 23 percent last year. We expect ready-to-wear exports of 17.14 billion US Dollars in 2020 to exceed 20 billion US Dollars this year.’’
‘‘The share of Turkey grows’’
Gülle expressed that they began to observe that the expectation for Turkey to increase its share in global supply chains was accurate, and finalized his statements as follows, ‘‘Not only in the ready-to-wear industry, but in every sector, buyers started to diversify in supply. At this point, in order to maintain our competitive edge, focusing on high quality and value-added production will enable us to get a much larger share in the global supply of ready-made clothing. As the field soldiers of exports, we will continue to work under all difficult conditions, as we did during the troublesome pandemic period.’’