Knitting Industry Association (ÖRSAD)President Fikri Kurt, announced the target of Turkish knitting sector for 2023. President Kurt, also said that Turkish knitted fabric industry has provided foreign exchange at 2011 by selling 165 thousand tons of knitted fabric for 1.3 billion dollars, in 2012 196 thousand tons of knitted fabric for 1.4 billion dollars and that the industry will easily reach the export target in 10 years.
Despite the ongoing impact of the global economic crisis since 2008, Kurt underlined there is an increase of Turkey's circular knitted fabric export every year between 100 and 200 million dollars.
"Our knitted fabric exports are increasing every year an average of 150 million dollars. And our machine racecourse has also been growing every year with imported 1000 new machines. Thus, if the growth of exports in our industry continues at the same speed in the next 10 years, it will easily capture the 3.5 billion dollars target.” said the ÖRSAD President at his speech .
Turkish Knitwear Industry Is At One Of The Few Countries
With its 18 thousand machine racecourse, ÖRSAD President emphasized theTurkish knitting industry as one of the world's country and expressed Turkey is the country with the most machine racecourse after China. According to Presiden Kurt in terms of quality, Turkey is ahead of China, "Even though Turkey is far behind China in terms of number of machines, the technology that has to be new and modern and the fabric quality and the exported fabrics with 60 percent of the sales price per kilogram is higher than China. We can see this fact, at the European Union's official statistics agency Eurostat data.”
Turkey Sells More Fabric Than China
At 2012, Turkey sold 37 percent of 196 thousand tons knitted fabric to the European Union which represents a sale of 73 thousand tons of knitted fabric at 2012 says Kurt, adding “The monetary value of these exports are 427 million euros. China, which is our most important competitor in the market sold 84.5 thousand tons of knitted fabrics and was able to get 294.2 million euros as foreign exhange at the same period. The average selling price of Turkey's knitted fabric exports to EU countries is 5.8 euro per kilogram while China's is 3.5 euros. So according to China, Turkey is selling 60 percent more expensive fabric.” About the targets of knitting industry in 2023, ÖRSAD President finally emphasized the expectation of Turkey's exports of textiles and textile products for 2023, 20 billion dollars as the export target and 17.5 percent of the share of exports of knitted fabric
