Turkish textile industry came together with global buyers at Première Vision Paris, one of the largest textile exhibitions in the world. The fabric and accessories exhibition, which was physically held in Nord Villepinte, Paris, France on February 8-10, was also held digitally on February 7-11. The exhibition managed to bring together the important players of the market around the key issues driving fashion at this time of economic recovery for the sector. It increased the number of visitors by 18% compared to the exhibition in September 2021, with the participation of more than 74 thousand 600 visitors, including 60% of which were international. Approximately 200 companies from the Turkish textile industry participated in the exhibition, where solutions focusing on the latest developments from 1,080 exhibitors, including 63 new companies from 41 countries, were introduced.
Turkish textile industry, which closed the previous year with an export figure of 12.9 billion dollars by reaching the historical record of the Republic. It focused on efforts to increase its exports in 2022, realizing an export of 1 billion dollars in the first month of the year. Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters’ Association (İTHİB) President Ahmet Öksüz, said that they came together with numerous buyers at the exhibition after the pandemic and that the exhibition is of great importance for the promotion and value-added exports of the Turkish textile industry.
Turkish textile industry introduced its GMO Free Cotton Project at Première Vision Paris
Ahmet Öksüz stated that they introduced the GMO Free Cotton Project at the exhibition and remarked that all of the cotton produced in Turkey is produced as GMO Free and Turkey is the world’s largest producer of GMO Free cotton. Öksüz relayed that they started a promotion campaign on a global scale together with the sector stakeholders to ensure the branding of GMO Free cotton production, and continued his words as follows:
“We continue our project in order to increase the chance of competition by creating a preferential brand for Turkish textile and thus to provide a more preferred status to Turkish cotton production. We exhibited our GMO Free Cotton Project at Première Vision Paris, in which we participated as an industry. Our ‘GMO Free Turkish Cotton’ project, initiated by the Izmir Commodity Exchange and the National Cotton Council, will gain momentum in 2022. We aimed to reach wider audiences by promoting our project at the exhibition and received positive feedback”.
The year-end target of the sector is 15 billion dollars of export
Ahmet Öksüz shared his evaluations on the economic indicators of the textile industry and said; “We came together with numerous global buyers at Première Vision Paris with National Participation Organization we held with the support of our Ministry of Commerce. The exhibitions we organize in order to increase the value-added exports of our industry are of great importance. We exported 1 billion dollars worth of goods in the first month of 2022 as an industry. We achieved an increase of 11% compared to last year. The top 3 countries to which we exported the most in this period were Italy, USA and Germany. The Capacity Utilization Rate of our sector in January is at the level of 80.5 percent”.
Öksüz stated that the industrial production index of the Turkish textile industry renews its own record every month and disclosed; “Our textile industry production index in November increased by 13 percent and reached the level of 151.1. As the textile industry, we will continue to contribute to our country’s economy. We will move our industry forward with the projects we will realize in 2022. Our goal is to set a new record with exports worth 15 billion dollars at the end of the year”.