Burak Sertbaş, President of the Aegean Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, Seray Seyfeli, Vice-President of the Aegean Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, and Çağlar Bağcı, Vice President of the Aegean Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, announced the 2023 evaluation and 2024 agenda and their goals for the coming period at the press conference.
Burak Sertbaş, President of the Aegean Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters' Association, said, “We achieved an export of 2023 billion dollars in the ready-made clothing industry in Turkey in 19,2. Our EHKİB 2023 exports amounted to 1 billion 340 million dollars. We closed the year 2023 with a 9% decrease compared to the previous year in Turkey in general and EHKİB in particular. 2023 has been a difficult year for our industry. The recession in Europe, our main export market, the uncertainty created by the Russia-Ukraine war, the lack of access to financing in the country, and the increases in labor/energy costs have put a strain on us. Customers started to leave because we remained expensive compared to our competitors due to cost increases. It is not easy to find a replacement for a departing customer. "Increasing the minimum wage support paid to employers to 1400 TL will make a positive contribution to employment and production." said.
WE ESTIMATE THAT THESE CHALLENGES WILL NEGATIVELY AFFECT OUR BUSINESS IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2024.
Emphasizing that they started the new year with ongoing problems from 2023, Mayor Sertbaş said, “The fact that high inflation has not been taken under control yet and there is no increase in foreign demand shows that 2024 will not be an easy year. Insufficient demand continues due to the impact of the recession in our main market, the EU, to which we make 60% of our exports. Low demand also negatively affects production.
Our capacity utilization rate has decreased from 84% to 76,4%. In addition, the 2023 percent additional customs duty decision on the import of yarn, fabric and ready-made clothing products in October 10 made the situation even more difficult for us ready-made clothing exporters. We estimate that these challenges will negatively impact our business in the first half of 2024.” he said.
WE WILL TRY TO REACH LAST YEAR'S REACH IN 2024: WE AIM TO EXPORT 1 BILLION 350 MILLION DOLLARS
Burak Sertbaş said that if things go well in the sector, they expect the recovery to occur in the last quarter of the year.
“As the Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Sector Board, we have determined our year-end export target as 20 billion dollars. Unfortunately, the general economic conjuncture and the lack of foreign demand are also reflected in our export figures. Figures for January 2024 have been announced, unfortunately the decline in our exports continues. Our decline rate is higher across Türkiye than in our region. When we compare January with the previous year, our exports in TR decreased by 1,4 billion dollars, and our EHKİB exports decreased by 2% to 113 million dollars. We will try to catch up with last year in 2024. We aim to export 1 billion 350 million dollars this year. Our exports are not going well right now, but on the other hand, we are among Turkey's most value-added exporting sectors. Our export unit price per kilogram is well above Türkiye's average. Our export unit price per KG; TR general export kg price is 15 dollars/kg, EHKİB export kg price: 21 dollars/kg.”
MY PROFESSION MY FUTURE PROJECT
Underlining that they started the "My Profession, My Future" project to increase the quality, quality and popularity of vocational high schools, Sertbaş continued his words as follows:
“Within the scope of this project, we match 10 vocational high schools across Izmir with our volunteer member companies and provide these high schools with materials, fabrics and maintenance and repair support for various machines in the school. The way to export value-added and get one step ahead of your competitors in global competition is through design. Today, thanks to the design power of our sector, we are among the most value-added exporting sectors of our country.”
A CLUSTER NAMED CLOTH, COMPOSED OF EUROPEAN BRANDS AND APPAREL ORGANIZATIONS, VISITED OUR REGION
President Sertbaş said, “As part of our cooperation with the Danish Consulate, a cluster called CLOTH, consisting of European brands and ready-made clothing organizations, visited our region in October 2023 and had contacts with our producers on sustainable production. The delegation visited Turkey to learn new information and understanding about sustainability and circular economy in the field of textiles and to establish new connections. This year, we concluded our URGE Project on Developing Sustainable Competition in the Ready-Made Clothing Sector, which we carried out with the participation of 22 companies. At the close of our project, we organized a study tour with the participating companies to Sweden, which carries out important studies in terms of sustainability, between 2-6 April 2023. “We are preparing a handbook that explains the processes our companies should follow in preparation for sustainable production.” said.
WE ARE PLANNING TO HOST A GROUP OF ITALIAN BUYERS IN IZMIR IN MAY
Explaining that they carried out the first foreign market activity of 2024 by participating in the Munich Fabric Start the Source fair with 10 companies, Burak Sertbaş said, “The demand in our main market, Europe, is still not at the level we want, but it is very important for us to regularly participate in international fairs held in our largest markets. We will start the necessary preparations to take part in the second MFS the Source fair, which will be held in September. We finished our PV Manufacturing Paris fair held last week. We have completed our 2nd fair as a union. Our companies are generally satisfied with the PV Paris fair. The second PV Paris fair will take place in July and we will take our place there as the Union. Italian Buyer Delegation: Our next activity is that we plan to host a group of Italian buyers in Izmir in May.” said.
CLUSTER SUPPORT PROGRAM OF THE MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TECHNOLOGY
President Sertbaş said, “We are planning to develop projects in the new year for the Northern countries, England and the USA, which is among our target markets. Our contacts with relevant institutions for these markets continue. We will continue our sustainable and responsible production approach in 2024. We are working on the necessity of determining the operational framework required for the sector to comply with the requirements of the EU Green Deal, evaluating the current situation of the sector, identifying development areas and creating sectoral strategies accordingly. In line with these studies, we, as EHKİB, applied to the Clustering Support program of the Ministry of Industry and Technology together with 38 companies and 6 partners and we expect a positive response.” he said.
EİB FASHION DESIGN COMPETITION IS HELD FOR THE 18TH TIME
Stating that they have started preparations for the Interreg NEXT Cross-Border Cooperation Program in the Mediterranean Basin, Sertbaş announced that they aim to apply for the project in March.
“The 1st call of the Interreg NEXT MED Programme, funded by the European Union, offers the opportunity to support cross-border cooperation projects with a significant budget and aims to promote sustainable and inclusive development in the Mediterranean region. We continue our contacts regarding partnership with our cooperation organizations in the Mediterranean countries. In the second quarter of this year, we will organize our fashion design competition for the 18th time with the theme "Analog" in order to bring talented young people to our industry. We received 230 applications for our competition. "We will continue to promote our My Choice Textile Engineering project, in which we set out to provide qualified personnel to our sector and to ensure that successful young people choose textile engineering, and we have made great progress."
EUROPE EXPECTS A STABLE ECONOMY FROM TURKEY
Seray Seyfeli, Vice President of the Aegean Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, said, “Market loss will continue in 2024. It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to return customers who have worked with other countries for approximately 4 seasons. Even if everything goes well, recovery can only begin at the end of 2025. Negativity in the European economy also causes price pressure on customers. As producers, we do not have much strength left to endure in the face of increasing costs and decreasing income. European customers expect a stable economy from Turkey, but it is inevitable that losses will continue in the face of long-lasting economic difficulties. As the Aegean Region, we are very good at design and sustainability. We have companies that do business well above European standards. We must do value-added work. "You can focus on technical clothing." he said.
WE NO LONGER EXPECT A LOWER MINIMUM WAGE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR COUNTRY.
Çağlar Bağcı, Vice President of the Aegean Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, said, “While the net minimum wage was around 300 dollars in the past years, it is currently at 550 dollars. Of course, this increase in labor, which is the biggest expense item in our industry, puts a lot of pressure on us. However, we no longer expect a lower minimum wage for our country to develop and for our people to live in even a little bit of prosperity. The ready-made clothing sector is Turkey's most important employment sector. In order to overcome this challenge, it is obvious that we need to produce high value-added, design, innovation and sustainability-oriented production. We have to quickly adapt our industry and ourselves to this change. Although the Suez Canal crisis may cause some Far Eastern orders to shift to Turkey, this will only provide a benefit in the short term. The sector that will best adapt to the transformation in Turkey is the ready-made clothing sector. "Our most important goal is to complete this as quickly as possible and leave these difficult times behind permanently," he said.
