Technical Textile Exports Pass the Pandemic Test

The textile and apparel sectors, like all other sectors, began experiencing unforeseen circumstances starting in mid-March when the Covid-19 outbreak spread to Turkey. During March-April-May 2020, we felt the effects of Covid-19 intensely in our export figures. Beginning in June, with the loosening of restrictions worldwide and in our main export market Europe, positive signals began coming from our exports. During the January-August period, the textile and apparel sectors combined achieved export volumes that surpassed the automotive sector, positioning them as the highest-exporting sector. As of December, our textile and raw material exports achieved a 29% increase nationwide and a 67% increase in the Aegean region, reaching the highest December export figure in the past 10 years. When evaluating the entire year, despite all negative developments, Turkey experienced only an 8% export loss compared to the previous period. However, our Association's exports increased compared to the previous year as of 2020, and we achieved 240 million dollars in exports with a 6% increase. With the impact of the pandemic, the importance of the technical textiles subsector among the textile and apparel sectors became even more apparent, and it was understood that rapid steps needed to be taken. During this period, there was significant demand especially for healthcare sector products and active sportswear. While the entire world experienced shortages of masks and protective clothing during the pandemic, Turkey, possessing a strong infrastructure in nonwoven used in masks and protective health garments, was able to meet its own needs while supplying personal protective equipment to the world in these healthcare products with high demand. At the same time, our companies received incentives for new investments in this field.

Turkey's technical textiles exports increased by 76% during the January-December 2020 period, reaching 3 billion dollars, while the Aegean Region's technical textiles exports increased by 98%, rising to 194 million dollars. When examining subcategories, we see the highest growth occurred in medical technical textiles products, also influenced by the pandemic.

Turkey's overall medical technical textiles exports increased by 2204%, reaching 1.4 billion dollars, while the Aegean's medical technical textiles exports increased by 4582%, reaching 92 million dollars. In the growth of medical technical textiles exports, we see that surgical garments and masks accounted for the main share. As our technical textiles exports and infrastructure work in this area increased, the importance of the Technical Textiles Research and Application Center, which we established in 2014 and whose priority work areas are protective, medical and sports technical textiles, further increased during this period. The intersection of TEKSMER's priority areas with product groups that emerged during the pandemic process provided an advantage for our region's technical textiles production and exports and will continue to do so. Besides technical textiles, two other important trends rising due to the pandemic in the textile and apparel sectors—sustainability and digitalization—continue to be our priorities. Our training and projects in these areas continue without losing momentum.

Additionally, lockdowns have made it impossible to hold international trade fairs and trade missions physically, forcing us to move our activities to digital platforms.

We actually view this as an opportunity and continue reaching our customers through digital platforms while making preparations for our target markets. In May 2021, our Association, in partnership with the Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association and Uludağ Textile Exporters Association, will organize a virtual sectoral trade mission targeting the Spanish market, and we have begun our preparations. During this period, we see that global brands' short-term orders and immediate demands are increasing. We believe this situation will develop shopping habits from neighboring markets and will make a significant contribution to our exports to Europe, which is our main market for our sector. Additionally, we must mention our sector's important contribution to employment. Through a very important social project carried out by our sector, the aim is to bring qualified textile engineers to the sector, and work in this area continues. In 2019, we saw noteworthy results in the project's first year with the department's selection outcomes; the occupancy rate in department quotas reached 92%, and 94 students choosing Textile Engineering received scholarships in the project's first year. This year, quotas were filled in 9 out of 14 departments, and the success ranking of students who applied increased again this year. This year, 74 students choosing Textile Engineering qualified to receive scholarships.