Hasan Keleşer/ News Center
The Turkish textile industry, which came to the fore with its privilege to have the reliable port following the pandemic, maintain its growth in exports thanks to the huge depreciation of Turkish liras against foreign currencies regarded as a positive effect. According to the figures announced by the Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters' Association (İTHİB), the industry's exports increased to 13 billion dollars. As exports reached at peak heights by 33.2 percent increase in 2021 in comparison to the year prior, it could enjoy reaching all-time high figures while breaking records.
In December, on the other hand, the industry reached all-time high export figures by month, with an increase of 18.2 percent in comparison to the same period of the year prior, and achieved 1,2 billion dollar in exports. While evaluating the export figures of the industry in 2021, İTHİB Chairman of the Board Ahmet Öksüz pointed out the increase trend in exports to be continued in 2022.
We Increased Our Exports to all markets
While giving information about the exports in country classification reaching up to 200 nations achieved by the textile industry in year prior, Ahmet Öksüz said, ''Our exports increased in amongst the countries carrying 85 per cent of our exports. We surpass all records in exports in the history of republic by leading Europe, America, Asia, African Continents and Turkic republics in exports. Furthermore, we achieved the highest textile export of all time in 96 nations and regions. Adding, one of the most encouraging news for our industry was the exports to the US.
In figures, we achieved an export of 839 million dollars to the USA which is considered as one of our biggest target markets. We are increasing our exports within the last three year to the US gradually. We are further projecting to export in excess of 1 billion dollars to US in 2022. The countries we exported the most to in a year prior were Italy with an increase of 52.5 percent, Germany with an increase of 11.2 percent and the USA with an increase of 33.7 percent, respectively. In this period, highest exports linked to the European Union nations, our biggest export market, increased by 33.8 percent and reached a value of approximately 6 billion dollars. Consequently, we are expecting our exports to the EU to reach 7,5 billion dollar in 2022.’’
New Year Target Set as 15 Billion Dollar
While underlining our exports in home textiles worth 2.3 billion dollars, in knitted fabrics worth 2.1 billion dollars in 2021, Öksüz provided the following information, ''We have reached the highest export levels of all time in our home textile and knit fabric industry disciplines. We have a share of over 10 percent in home textile imports of our biggest export market, the EU. Adding, in the Knitted Fabric industry discipline, we are positioned as the largest supplier of the EU. The Turkish knitted fabric industry discipline has a total share of 42.4 percent from the EU's knitted fabric imports. We foresee that our success in the home textile and knit fabric industry disciplines will continue in 2022. In addition, we will make a big export move in our woven fabric and technical textile industry disciplines in 2022.’’
While emphasizing that the Turkish textile industry is the 5th largest textile exporter in the world, Ahmet Öksüz also pointed out that the Turkish textile industry is the second supplier of the EU nations.
While sharing their record expectations in exports with a value of 15 billion dollars this year, Öksüz said the following, ''In this context, various organizations such as our Texhibition Istanbul Fair, which we aim to organize in Istanbul in 2022 in cooperation with ITO as İTHİB, our I Of The World Fair in New York, Premiere Vision Paris, London Textile Fair, Munich Fabric Start, Techtextil Frankfurt Technical Textile Fair, Our National Participation Organizations and trade delegations will all play an important role in our export move. Our industry, which is a global leader in many economic factors, from integrated production power to qualified employment, from investments we have made in the field of sustainability to R&D studies, from flexible production capability to logistics advantages; proved once again that it is a reliable port in the supply chain of many global brands after the epidemic. In particular, in 2021, our companies strengthened their position in the supply chain by rapidly commissioning new investments. In 2022, we will surely be the champions not only in exports but also in investments, investments worth of 10 billion dollars will be commissioned shortly. In this context, we are rapidly coming closer to our target to become one of the world's top 3 textile exporting countries in the mid-term.’’
