Despite the closures in exporting countries, the Turkish ready-made clothing industry continues its efforts for foreign markets. Evaluating Turkey's ready-to-wear and apparel exports, Mustafa GÜLTEPE, Deputy Chairman of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) and President of the Istanbul Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters' Association (İHKİB), stated that the ready-to-wear and apparel industry displayed a successful performance in 2020 despite all the negative effects of the epidemic. stated. Ready-made clothing was the third largest exporting sector in January.

Despite the closures in exporting countries, the Turkish ready-made clothing industry continues its efforts for foreign markets. According to the data of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), Turkey's exports in January of this year, despite the epidemic, reached 15 billion 48 million dollars with an increase of 2.5 percent compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching the highest January export figure in the history of the Republic.

The ready-made clothing and apparel industry, which exported 1 billion 490 million 276 thousand dollars in January of last year, became the third sector with the highest export volume in January of this year with 1 billion 523 million 136 thousand dollars.

While a significant portion of the sector's exports of 1 billion 30 million 279.72 thousand dollars was made from Istanbul last month, it was followed by Bursa with 124 million 72.95 thousand dollars and İzmir with 116 million 411.87 thousand dollars. Last month, the country with the highest foreign sales in the ready-made clothing and apparel sector was Germany with 303 million 861.51 thousand dollars. This country was followed by Spain with 172 million 584.94 thousand dollars and the United Kingdom with 140 million 128.18 thousand dollars.

There was a 34.1% increase in exports to the USA.

Evaluating Turkey's ready-to-wear and apparel exports, Mustafa GÜLTEPE, Deputy Chairman of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) and President of Istanbul Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters' Association (İHKİB), stated that the ready-to-wear and apparel industry performed well in 2020 despite all the negative effects of the epidemic. stated.

We will see 2020 only 3.1 percent less than the previous year, 17 billion 143 million. dollar Reminding that they closed with exports, Gültepe said: “As IHKIB, we start with the target of increasing our sectoral exports by 10 percent every year. The continuation of mass vaccination applications in the world, especially in Europe and the USA, and the signing of a free trade agreement (STA) with the UK before 2021 gave us hope for the future. Despite the closures in countries such as Germany and England, which are among our biggest markets, we closed the month of January with 1 billion 523 million dollars of exports. Despite two working days less than last year, we recorded an increase of 2.2 percent in January. In January, we were in the top 3 in the sector, by signing 10.1 percent of Turkey's general exports. Despite the closures in January, we achieved an increase of 4.7 percent in our exports to the EU and 34.1 percent in the US market.”
Noting that the February and March period orders of the companies did not reach the desired level, Gültepe said, “The extension of the closing measures in Europe shows that we may not be able to reach our first quarter targets. We foresee that the revival in the markets will start in the second quarter and normalcy will be restored in the second half of the year.” said.

Pointing out that there was a 20-25 percent increase in raw material costs in dollar terms, Gültepe said that in a period when labor costs increased by more than 20 percent, the fact that the dollar rate fell below 7.20 forced the exporter to create competitive prices.

$91 million of masks and protective clothing were exported in January

Reminding that masks and protective clothing were an important export item for the industry with a contribution of 1 billion 340 million dollars last year, Mustafa GÜLTEPE said, “We exported 91 million dollars of masks and protective clothing in January. We can at least triple this figure. However, the continuation of the grant requirement for masks and medical clothing creates a separate problem for our exporters. We demand that the grant requirement, which adversely affects our competitiveness, be removed as soon as possible. If the grant requirement is removed from the mask and the exchange rate rises to a competitive level again, we can close 2021 with an 8-10 percent increase in exports.” he said.

Emphasizing that investment is needed to increase capacity and renew technology, Gültepe noted that companies want to continue their investments that they do not interrupt even in 2020 conditions, but the loan interest rates of 20 percent make the investment unattractive and they expect the public authority to make positive discrimination in this regard.