Our Dependence to Import Continues in Machinery
Nalbant pointing out that the Turkish Textile Machinery and Accessories Industry keeps growing in exports with small figures and despite this underlined the import fact. Nalbant informed that in global terms the textile machinery and accessories export figures reached 24 billion USD and China, USA, India, Germany and Turkey have a percentage of 48 % and said that “ China constitutes 25% of the market alone whereas Turkey has a share of 5,2 % in the market.”
Nalbant providing detailed information about the Turkish Textile Industry’s machinery and technology imports explained that out of the imports realized between 2002 and 2012 and equivalent to 15 billion USD is constituted as 25% yarn, 20 % knitting and 15% weaving. Nalbant underlining that the industry segment with the least trade deficit is the finishing machines and continued his words as follows: “When we have a look at the export and import figures of some products in 2011, it is seen that imports are more. In the fiber production group an import equivalent to 59 million USD is realized while an export of 7 million USD is realized. In the yarn production group an import equivalent to 535 million USD is realized while an export of 53 million USD is realized. In the weaving production group an import equivalent to 278 million USD is realized while an export of 15 million USD is realized. In the knitting production group an import equivalent to 337 million USD is realized while an export of 19 million USD is realized. In the components and spare parts production group an import equivalent to 187 million USD is realized while an export of 33 million USD is realized. In the felt production group an import equivalent to 76 million USD is realized while an export of only 1 million USD is realized. In the finishing production group an import equivalent to 211 million USD is realized while an export of 150 million USD is realized. At the same time, this constitutes the largest figure of exports to meet the imports. In the apparel production group an import equivalent to 131 million USD is realized while an export of 18 million USD is realized.”
Wrong Policy Created A Second Hand Machinery Waste Yard
Mr.Adil Nalbant underlining that the Turkish Textile Machinery and Accessories industry remains stable despite its deficiencies informed that very clear increase and decrease in machinery imports. Nalbant repeating that imports decreased to 450 million USD in 2009 from 2.2 billion USD urged that imports were at the bottom level and this period was not used as an opportunity and consequently Turkey became “The World’s most preferred textile machinery junkyard”. Nalbant continued as follows: “Within the 2 consecutive years after the 2009 crisis, most of the machineries out of the 3 billion USD machinery imports are “second hand” machineries. Unfortunately the current Customs Tariff Statistics Position based customs legislation does not even let us to diagnose this illness. We do not even know exactly how many second hand machineries are available in our country.”
A Solution for the Industry not able to Increase its Exports Should be found
Adil Nalbant underlined that the export limit of 300 million USD could not be exceeded and pointed out that urgent precautions should be taken in order to solve this problem and indicated that otherwise Turkey will lose one of its more vital organs. Nalbant expressed that the industry can only achieve its export target by being taken under protection. Nalbant urged that the additional customs duty applied on textile products in order to protect the local textile industry must be also applied for the machinery and accessories industry and added that manufacturers under protection can than take a comfortable breath and get the opportunity to improve themselves. Nalbant listed what needs to be done in this period as follows; “Financial support should be given to SMEs, which do not have their own accumulated capitals, in order to benefit from this period. This support should only be given provided that manufacturers complete their incompleteness, that is to say that they should upgrade their product and services so that they are in compliance Central Anatolian Exporters’ Union’s (OIAB) TURQUM Quality Standards. It should be explicitly informed that manufacturers having sacrificed from their quality in order to survive will not be within the scope of the Strategy plan. Support should also be given to companies having committed to maintain its quality as a standard so that they can obtain quality certificates, employ qualified human resources, conduct R&D activities, to construct industrial organized zones and reduce energy, raw material and similar input costs. In order to enable manufacturers to compete in the local and international market, these supports should be provided within Turkish Eximbank Country Buyer Loans and Halkbank Local Machinery Manufacturer Support Loan programs. Without doubt, our manufacturers getting the aforementioned supports will contribute to achieve our country’s target shortly.”
