Turkish Leather Industry will Reach China’s Productivity Level with Its Own Medium-Term Program
The Turkish leather industry has decided to implement the “Leather and Leather Products Industry Medium-Term Program” under the coordination of the Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters Association to stop the negative trend. The industry believes that by strengthening relations with China and increasing productivity, it will overcome the crisis.
Handbags in the storefront of a fashion boutique store on the shelves
The Medium-Term Program, implemented to reduce Turkiye’s inflation to single digits, has resulted in a loss for labor-intensive sectors. The leather industry, one of the most negatively affected sectors by the medium-term program, saw its exports drop from 1.858 billion USD in 2023 to 1.526 billion USD in 2024, suffering an 18% loss in total national exports. The leather industry is rolling up its sleeves to recover from this crisis by increasing productivity and focusing on value-added products.
Medium- Term Program will Set the Industry’s Roadmap
Erkan Zandar, President of the Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters Association, stated that the program they have prepared for the medium-term development of the leather and leather products sector would create a roadmap with projects covering sub-sectors such as stock management, production efficiency, and access to finance, providing guidance to companies. The program also includes the sector’s main challenges and proposed solutions.
“We aim to increase the sector’s competitiveness by improving productivity,” said Zandar. “We have a plan to integrate the good practices from China into our business models. We conducted an in-depth study in China, visiting factories in Xiantao and Xiamen, and met with sector organizations. We are also working hard to organize the participation of our sector representatives in the China Import Expo from November 5-10, 2025.”
Zandar further explained that they held a meeting at the Leather Goods Industrialists’ Association in Istanbul to increase participation in the China Import Expo and to provide information to leather goods companies about the fair. “In addition to the leather goods sector, we are creating promotional catalogs for food, services, and consumer products, and we plan to expand the fair’s promotion by conducting one-on-one company visits with field teams. Recently, we visited the Beauty Istanbul Cosmetics Fair in Istanbul and introduced the fair to companies with exports to China. We shared fair information with all Exporters’ Associations, all free zones, and sector organizations in construction and logistics. On June 20, 2025, we will host a promotional launch of the fair for our companies at the EIB service building with the participation of Chinese Ambassador to Turkiye Jiang Xuebin and CIIE fair management officials.”
“Chına is the Rıght Market to Sell Products and Learn Lessons”
Halil Gündoğdu, Vice President of the Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters Association, emphasized that China is not only a huge market for exporting products but also has valuable knowledge that should be transferred to Turkiye in terms of production technologies and efficiency. Reflecting on their recent visit to China, he pointed out that adopting China’s standardized working practices and performance measurements would significantly improve productivity, sample variety, and cost/stock management in the industry.
