Ready-made clothing manufacturers are in trouble! | Mersin Haberci Newspaper

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Stating that the Turkish ready-made clothing and apparel industry continues to struggle with global economic recession, increasing production costs, employment losses and domestic market problems in 2024.

Gürkan Tekin, President of the Mediterranean Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters’ Association (AHKİB), stated that the sector’s exports throughout the country decreased by 18.7 percent to 1 billion 618 million dollars, and with the export balance sheet in the January-March period of 2024, it will reach a value of 4 billion 539 million dollars with a loss of 12.5 percent. reported that it was reached.

President Gürkan Tekin stated that the Turkish ready-made clothing and apparel industry experienced difficulties and rays of hope together in the first quarter of 2024, and said that there has been an increase in demand in recent weeks, but there should also be an increase in the exchange rate in order to sell the products at the required prices.

“EUROPEAN BUYERS ARE GIVING THE GREEN LIGHT, BUT WE ARE MISSING ORDERS DUE TO EXCHANGE PRESSURE”

Stating that European purchasing groups, which have reduced their purchases from Turkey since the last months of 2022, have given the green light to Turkish companies in the recent period, President Gürkan Tekin said that their increase in demand was due to exchange rate pressure. President Gürkan Tekin said, “We are receiving positive signals that European fashion giants have started to return to supply from Turkey, but we are missing incoming orders because we cannot keep prices due to the exchange rate level. “We expect the exchange rate to reach levels that will support our competitiveness,” he said.

LEADING MARKETS FOR AHKİB’S EXPORTS IN MARCH: NETHERLANDS, SPAIN AND FRANCE

President Gürkan Tekin, who discussed AHKİB’s sector exports in March according to product groups and countries, said: “In the third month of the year, we evaluated 3 thousand 129 tons of products from AHKİB’s responsibility area in international markets. 88 percent of our regional exports consisted of women’s outerwear, men’s outerwear and other ready-made goods product groups. We reached a value of 17 million 888 thousand dollars in women’s outerwear, which constituted 56 percent of our exports in March. This was followed by men’s outerwear in second place with a 22 percent share and a value of 7 million 158 thousand dollars, and other ready-made goods in third place with a 10 percent share and a value of 3 million 65 thousand dollars. The top three countries in the list of countries we exported the most to in March were the Netherlands, Spain and France. We exported 14 million 474 thousand dollars to the Netherlands, an increase of 141 percent. Spain ranked second with a value of 4 million 952 thousand dollars, and France ranked third with a value of 2 million 549 thousand dollars. “The countries where we achieved significant increases in export volume during the said period were the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, Italy and Iraq.”