Inditex and Sustainability Take Aim at Trade

Sustainability Partnership with Inditex Evaluating the meeting held in Istanbul by a delegation headed by Inditex CEO Oscar Garcia Maceiras, TİM and İHKİB Chairman Mustafa Gültepe stated: "We once again saw that the executives of Inditex, which includes the brands Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius and Oysho, are willing to develop trade with Turkey. We decided to establish a joint commission to strengthen cooperation and knowledge sharing on sustainable production." A series of talks aimed at strengthening and making cooperation sustainable between Turkish ready-made garment and textile exporters and Spain-based Inditex Group is continuing. At the Istanbul phase of the talks, which began in October 2022 in Spain, consensus was reached on strengthening sustainability in both production and cooperation. The Turkish Exporters Council (TİM) Textile and Ready-Made Garment Sector Board, chaired by Chairman Mustafa Gültepe, met in Istanbul with Inditex CEO Oscar Garcia Maceiras and his delegation. Gültepe, who also serves as chairman of the Istanbul Ready-Made Garment and Confection Exporters Association (İHKİB), noted that ready-made garments and textiles rank among Turkey's leading sectors in terms of value-added production, employment contribution and exports. Reporting that they achieved total textile and ready-made garment exports of USD 31.5 billion in 2022, Gültepe continued as follows:

We Have Strong Cooperation with European Brands Based on Win-Win Principles

"Our goal is to raise this volume to USD 60 billion in the medium term, consisting of USD 40 billion in ready-made garments and USD 20 billion in textiles. In order to achieve this target in the two sectors that form an inseparable whole, we must further increase our exports to the EU. The EU remains our largest market at 60 percent. Inditex, which includes the brands Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius and Oysho, ranks first among the groups making the highest purchases from Turkey in textiles and ready-made garments. We have an established partnership with Inditex and other European global brands based on win-win principles. We want to further develop and make this existing partnership sustainable. We are aware of the sensitivity of Inditex, which plans to move its production to near geography, and our other European business partners regarding sustainability. We are conducting intensive work to accelerate the adaptation of our sector to the Green Deal and increase sustainable production capacity. We have completed our sustainability action plans in both the textile and ready-made garment sectors. All of these efforts also serve as a roadmap for our sectors' compliance with the Green Deal. Our geographic proximity to Europe also provides an important advantage in reducing the negative environmental effects of logistics processes. We shared all these assessments with our Spanish guests. We had the opportunity to once again see that they are willing to develop cooperation with Turkey. We decided to establish a joint commission to strengthen cooperation and knowledge sharing on sustainable production." Reminding that Inditex demonstrated great solidarity with those affected and the Turkish ready-made garment industry following the Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquakes on 6 February, Gültepe once again expressed his gratitude to Oscar Garcia Maceiras and Inditex Group for their support during the difficult period.