Erkan Zandar, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters Association, underlined that the demand has not seen for leather and leather product items worldwide. Zandar said, “Importers also spent their liquid assets, as neither any order placed or any price quote lodged. Even we trade for a goodwill, there is no customer.’’ while summarising the current conditions which is true for leather and leather products exports.
While delivering a speech at the Financial General Assembly Meeting of the Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters' Association, which took place at the Aegean Exporters' Associations, Zandar said the following in the evaluation of the current conditions, "Turkey's leather and leather products exports will decrease from 2 billion 56 million dollars to 1 billion 860 million dollars in 2023, with a loss of of 9.5 percent. In the first quarter of 2024, the decline in exports increased further and we experienced a total of 28 percent export loss. Our exports decreased from 568.6 million dollars to 409.5 million dollars. Exports do not seem to recover in the remaining period of 2024 as well"
Zandar continued with the following, "Nobody is willing to sacrifice their capital for any item’’ and said, “After the pandemic, importers placed orders with their amounts above the average. Neither liquidating their stocks because the overall demand decreased due to the recession in the global economy. Importers are no longer want to bear stock costs and do not place new orders because there is no demand and financing cannot be found. This shows itself in export conduct.”
The Aegean Region's Export Decline Remained More Limited
EDMİB President Erkan Zandar stated that the export performance of the Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters' Association, which includes the footwear, leather goods, leather apparel and hide leather sub-sectors, is relatively better than Turkey in general, and said, "Our leather and leather products exports from the Aegean Region decreased by 4.8%, from 191 million dolllars to 182 million dolllars in 2023. In 2023, the decrease in Turkey's leather and leather products exports recorded as 9.5 percent. While the exports of our sector throughout Turkey fell by 28 percent in the first quarter of 2024, the drop in the Aegean Region's leather and leather products exports remained at 18 percent. As EDMİB, we believe that the online and brick and mortar marketing activities we carried out in the Metaverse environment in Italy, Kazakhstan, Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were effective in limiting the decline in our exports. In 2024, we will continue our marketing activities within the framework of our available budget as well with the support of digitalization."
Stars of Leather Exports Rewarded
Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters' Association merged the 2023 financial general assembly meeting with the "Stars of Leather Exports Award Ceremony" for the sake of recovering the conditions in the sector.
At the “Stars of Leather Exports Award Ceremony”; EDMİB rewarded 39 member companies that exported over 1 million dollars in 2023. Amongst the companies that realized 67 percent of EDMİB's 2023 exports, the footwear industry was represented by 29 companies, while the leather goods sector enabled 4 companies to become the stars of leather exports. The leather apparel industry and the leather industry found their place at the "Stars of Leather Exports Award Ceremony" with the participation of three companies for each of them.
Aegean Leather and Leather Products Exporters' Association "Stars of Leather Exports Award Ceremony" ranked the first three as; “Lider Deri Ürünleri San. Tic. A.Ş., Sepiciler Çaybaşı Deri Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. and Agamoda Deri Konfeksiyon San. Tic. A.Ş.”
In the gold category; Eskatek Deri San. Tic. Ltd. Sti., Marc Chantal Deri ve Tekstil Ürünleri San. Tic. Ltd. Şti., Narinbebe Ayakkabı Tekstil ve Gıda San. Tic. Ltd. Şti. were entitled to the award.
