The Event, taking place at the Istanbul Fair Center with the participation of nearly 600 companies, was received great appreciation from the industry members. Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) President İsmail Gülle, who made the opening speech at the event, while drawing attention to the density of both domestic and foreign visitor flow, said the following, ‘’What we see here both in 2021 and in 2022 has been the positive developments in the industry. We have unexploited potential as a nation. A feeling pushing you to break down any barrier and projecting for the future targets to achieve something bigger. We can see this feeling of excitement at this event.’’’
"Turkey has been the Production and Attraction Center"
İsmail Gülle shared personal evaluation on the 23 billion dollar 2022 targets that are not satisfactory and said, ‘’25 billion dollar capacity can be achieved for this industry. What we witnessed was this a year prior at most of our companies; not responding every order and receiving too much of them… We have not entitled to any order to Turkey up until now but it is true that a number of companies are turning their path to Turkey to do business with their increasing amount of orders.’’
"My proposal is to increase the export target of the sector to 25 billion dollars’’
Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (İTO) President Şekib Avdagiç also stated that ready-made clothing and apparel is the first sector in terms of added value and employment to the country, and evaluated our export target that was around 23 billion dollars for 2022 as quite modest while sharing personal proposal to further increase these figures to 25 billion dollar.
While placing trust on the event, Avdagiç said the following, ‘’IFCO is more than an Istanbul brand but also will achieve new heights as a regional and as a global fair as well.’’ while giving statistics about the fairs recently taking place in Paris which have losing their client base nearly half and further informed us about the two companies which will exhibit at fairs in Turkey with the rise in their figures at around 10 to 15 per cent and concluded that Turkey has an important potential.
‘’2021 Has Been a Year in Which Orders Have Lodged’’
İHKİB President Mustafa Gültepe stated their happiness to achieve the dream of the fashion industry with the realization of this event. While underlining the positive impact of the fair over the industry within pandemic, Gültepe said the following, ‘’Especially for European-based brands, Turkey has become a reliable port. In 2021, the entire industry received huge amount of orders. We could not even deliver some of them at the time. As evidence, we reached a record export figure of 20.3 billion dollars in our industry. We are now raising qualified workforce for our industry. We are also working towards to strengthening our design capacity altogether. We have been in support of macro production and exports and we will continue to do so. With our EU supported projects, we are achieving digitalization truly for our industry. Finally, we are working on to expand and develop our sustainable production infrastructure.’’
‘’Intense Participation’’
Gültepe revealed some statistics about the company figures for their first fair around 300 and despite shortening time period, their will to achieve an event with nearly 600 companies and said that they would be able to bring together women's, men's and children's clothing, underwear, wedding dresses, evening dresses, leather garments under one roof, and in this way, achieved an organization in which they could exhibit sound designs, trends and brands to the global showcase.
