Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters' Association (İTHİB) awarded successful textile exporters whom contributed to the 11.6 billion dollars of exports in 2023. While congratulating the companies that received awards for their success, İTHİB Chairman of the Board Ahmet Öksüz said, “The time has come to achieve new successes in textiles. We should put much more effort into branding, make investments with global brands and company acquisitions or partnership model, and think more globally. This shirt is no longer fit for our textile and ready-to-wear sectors.’’
The successful exporters of the textile sector, whom completed 2023 with 11.6 billion dollars of exports, were awarded by the Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters' Association (İTHİB). The award ceremony which hosted by the İTHİB Chairman of the Board Ahmet Öksüz was attended by Ministry of Trade Export General Manager Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya, Turkish Exporters' Assembly (TİM) Vice President Çetin Tecdelioğlu and many other guests.
Support for Domestic Fairs On the Rise
While stating that exports will be the engine of growth for Turkey in the upcoming period, Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya, the General Manager of Exports at the Ministry of Trade, emphasized on the various critical support provided to exporters as a ministry and underlined about the additional incentives which are under preperation for domestic fairs. While stating that there has been great interest in the fairs which held recently and that Istanbul is taking one step further each day on its way to becoming an international fair center, Kılıçkaya said, “Before coming here, we consulted with our general secretary and co-operated. We have formulated an idea. We will support domestic fairs more strongly. We will deliver the legislation and infrastructure for this in the shortest possible time frame. I would like to share the pleasure of this.’’
Emphasis on E-Export and Green Deal
Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya, who made a comment on the subject of e-export as well during speech, called on exporters not to overlook this issue. Kılıçkaya said, “As the Ministry, we have formulated packages that strongly support e-export and are also organizing events and fairs. We invited the world’s 30 strongest marketplaces to the event we organized last week and all attended. Around three thousand meetings were held. My personal recommendation is to closely benchmark our ministry’s activities at this point.” While also drawing attention to the European Union Green Deal, Kılıçkaya talked about the preparation on the new support package for compliance with this deal. While giving emphasis on the portal which formed in detail on the subject, Kılıçkaya continued as follows; “When you enter this portal, you will find out the level of of self-consciousness on the environment via spesific questions which designed for this purpose. Then, a sustainability roadmap will be created for you. We will cover half of the consultancy fees which may apply to you at this point, up to 10 million TL. In addition, we are working with Türk Eximbank and İhracatı Geliştirme (İGE) A.Ş. under this title. While receiving consultancy on the job, you will also have much easier access to Eximbank's loans and İGE's warrant system."
“When Conditions Normalize, We Will Reach Our Targets Swiftly”
While pointing out the Turkish textile sector which is one of the sectors where we have become a brand globally with its exports to 200 countries and regions, Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) Vice President Çetin Tecdelioğlu noted that it also provides great services to the perception of ‘Made in Turkey’ and strengthens the Turkish brand with its quality. Tecdelioğlu said, “Last year, 29 thousand of our exporters achieved exports in the textile and ready-to-wear sectors. The total exports of our two sectors exceeded 29 billion dollars. We reached 18 billion dollars only in the first 8 months of this year. Turkey differentiates from other countries with its quality, speed and flexible production capability in textile and ready-to-wear production. Our geographical proximity to Europe, fast delivery opportunities and environmentally friendly production processes in particular make us a preferred supplier in global markets. In the long term, we have an export target of 40 billion dollars in the ready-to-wear sector and 20 billion dollars in the textile sector. I believe that we will reach these figures swiftly with the normalization of conditions.”
While underlining that it is also vital for the textile sector to continue taking innovative steps such as sustainability and digitalization, Tecdelioğlu stated that as TİM and exporters' associations, their sectoral sustainability action plans have been completed and the projects such as GreenTİM and EcoTİM have been commissioned for green transformation. While pointing out that the textile sector is the first sector to implement the Sustainability Action Plan which initiated as TİM, Tecdelioğlu said, "Our exporters' associations are following the realizations in the action plans step by step. I believe that we will increase our competitiveness with green transformation."
“This Shirt is No Longer Fit for Us”
While stating that the textile and ready-made clothing sectors are the cornerstones of the Turkish economy, Ahmet Öksüz, Chairman of the Board of Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters’ Association (İTHİB), stated that demand contraction in the global context, unexpected rapid increases in our production costs and the increase in the exchange rate remained below inflation in particular, deeply affected the sector. Under all these conditions, Ahmet Öksüz, who emphasized on the urgency to take an action to achieve new success stories as a sector, “We should put much more effort into branding, make investments with global brands and company acquisitions or partnership model, and think more globally. We should determine new roadmaps for branded exports. So why do we say branded exports and emphasize on the added value? While the US’s woven fabric import unit price in the world is 6.7 dollars, this is over 7 dollars in Turkey. While the import unit price in the European Union is around 6.8 in home textiles, this figure is around 10 Euros in Turkey. In fact, as the textile sector, we have a high value-added production structure and infrastructure. The more we increase the number of ready-to-wear brands that open up to the world, the more support we provide to global brand partners, the stronger the textile and ready-to-wear sector will become. The current reality is now far insufficient for our textile and ready-to-wear sectors. In other words, this shirt is no longer fit for us. In addition to being a qualified supplier of brands, we must strengthen our place on the world stage with our own brands.”
We Expect Texhibition Fair to be Included in the ‘Prestigious Fair’ Scope
Ahmet Öksüz, who also emphasized that there is great interest from all over the world in Texhibition Fair, which opened its doors two days ago, said, “Our Texhibition fair has become the fruitful of our work. We hosted more than 25 thousand visitors in our fair which held in the first half of 2024. We aim to run this fair with more than 30 thousand visitors. While there have been shrinkages of up to 50 percent in major textile fairs in the world, this intense interest has shown that successful steps we are taking. In addition, we look forward to our Ministry of Trade to include our fair in the ‘Prestigious Fair’ scope and we are also seeking to increase the level of incentives.” Öksüz, who reminded that the ‘Sustainability Talks’ conference, which has attracted great interest at the global level for years, was organized abroad for the first time this year, said, “We held the conference in Amsterdam, in other words, in the center of this business. We will continue to reveal the story of our sector’s sustainability to the world.”
Öksüz, who informed that the Textile Engineering Scholarship program, which was initiated to increase the qualified workforce in the textile sector where billions of dollars of investments are made, which has been successful as well, emphasized on the occupancy rates, dropped to 40 percent, have recovered, levelled, increased and climbed upto 90 percent thanks to the scholarship program. Öksüz said, “The scholarship program has created the opportunity to attract more qualified young talents to these schools. Now we have taken up the subject of vocational high schools and have taken over the mentorship of one of our high schools from the Istanbul Chamber of Industry (İSO). While providing quality education not only in universities but also in vocational high schools and bringing these children into the sector is one of our most important goals.”
A Total of 563 Awards Were Presented
At the ‘İTHİB Export Stars 2023 Award Ceremony’; 3 stars, 27 platinum, 22 gold, 73 silver, 267 bronze, and 171 success awards have found their owners.
