The industry has been stable for the last two years due to geopolitical conditions in the neighbouring countries and diplomatic tension between Turkey and leading European Union (EU) countries, said Hadi Karasu, the chairman of TGSD, in an interview with Fibre2Fashion. “With our efforts, leading exporters of the sector today are overcoming this stability and the initial days of 2018 show the ready-to-wear sector is at a breaking point.”In 2017, the local market size of ready -to-wear industry was $35 billion, the amount of knitwear exported was worth $8.90 billion and woven export was $5.95 billion. The domestic market of the country has been growing at a stable rate parallel to exports in the last couple of years, he added.
Talking about China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, Karasu said, “China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ project is a threat for the Turkish apparel industry. Primarily, China carries its apparel industry to Western China where cheap labour is intense. Therefore, China will be threatening Turkey by its easier access to EU and the project will be pressurising this very important competitive advantage of Turkey.”Visiting target markets, making more efforts to make the Turkish ready-to-wear industry an international brand and supporting the industry to meet global criteria of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability will be the top three issues of TSGD’s agenda in 2018, he concluded.
