Important topics were discussed at the ‘ITHIB Stars of Export Award Ceremony’, where successful textile exporters who contributed to the 11.6 billion dollars of exports in 2023 were awarded. The award ceremony, hosted by ITHIB Chairman Ahmet Öksüz, was attended by Ministry of Trade Export General Manager Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya, Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) Deputy Chairman Çetin Tecdelioğlu and several other guests.
Stating that exports will be the engine of growth for Türkiye in the upcoming period, Kılıçkaya underlined that they provide very important support to exporters as a ministry and said that they are preparing additional support for domestic exhibitions. Noting that there has been great interest in the exhibitions held recently and that Istanbul is taking one step further each day on the path to becoming an international exhibition centre, Kılıçkaya said: “Before coming here, we sat down with our secretary general and worked. We have an idea. We will support domestic exhibitions more strongly. We will create the legislation and infrastructure for this as soon as possible. I want to give you the good news of this.”
He also touched upon the subject of e-export in his speech and called on exporters not to overlook this matter. Kılıçkaya disclosed: “As a ministry, we have prepared packages that strongly support e-export, and we are organizing events and exhibitions. We invited the world’s 30 strongest marketplaces to the event we organized last week, and they came. Around 3,000 meetings were held. I recommend that you closely follow our ministry’s activities on this issue.”
‘Green’ support package for exporters
Drawing attention to the European Union Green Deal, Kılıçkaya said that they have prepared a new support package for compliance with this deal. Stating that they have created a very comprehensive portal on the subject, Kılıçkaya continued his words as follows: “When you log into this portal, you will be able to see how green you are with specific questions prepared. Then, we will create a sustainability roadmap for you. At this point, we will cover half of the consultancy you will receive, up to 10 million TL. In addition, we are working with Türk Eximbank and İhracatı Geliştirme (İGE) A.Ş. While you receive consultancy on the one hand, you will also be able to access Eximbank’s loans and İGE’s guarantee system much more easily on the other hand.”
“We will increase our competitive advantage with the green transformation”
Çetin Tecdelioğlu, who emphasized that Türkiye stands out from other countries with its quality, speed and flexible production capacity in textile and apparel production, said: “Our geographical proximity to Europe, fast delivery opportunities and environmentally friendly production processes make us a preferred supplier in global markets. In the long term, we have an export target of 40 billion dollars in the apparel industry and 20 billion dollars in the textile industry. I believe that we will reach these figures quickly with the normalization of conditions.”
Underlining that it is also vital for the textile industry to continue taking innovative steps such as sustainability and digitalization, Tecdelioğlu stated that TİM and exporters’ associations have completed their sectoral sustainability action plans and that projects such as GreenTİM and EcoTİM have been put into effect for green transformation. He pointed out that the textile industry is the first industry to implement the Sustainability Action Plan they initiated as TİM and said: “Our exporters’ associations are following the realizations in the action plans step by step. I believe that we will increase our competitive advantage with green transformation.”
“We must strengthen our place on the world stage with our own brands”
Ahmet Öksüz pointed out that the textile and apparel industries are the cornerstones of the Turkish economy, and stated that the global demand contraction, unexpected rapid increases in production costs and especially the fact that the increase in the exchange rate remained below inflation deeply affected the industry. Öksüz touched on the fact that it was time for the industry to write new stories under all these conditions, and spoke as follows;
“We should put much more effort into branding, make investments with global brand and company acquisitions or partnership models, and think more globally. We should determine new roadmaps for branded exports. So why do we say branded exports and emphasize added value? While the US’s woven fabric import unit price in the world is 6.7 dollars, the import unit price in Türkiye is over 7 dollars. While the import unit price in the European Union is around 6.8 in home textiles, the import unit price in Türkiye is around 10 euros. In fact, as the textile industry, we have a production structure and infrastructure with high added value. The more we increase the number of apparel brands that open up to the world, the more support we provide to global brand partners, the stronger the textile and apparel industries will be. The current situation is now too tight for our textile and apparel industries. In other words, this shirt is really too tight for us. In addition to being a qualified supplier of brands, we should strengthen our place on the world stage with our own brands.”