Ready-wear exports decreased by nearly 40 percent in the beginning of the pandemic period; yet there was an 11 percent increase in August exports.
According to the data of Aegean Exporters’ Union, ready-wear sector is one of the sectors that affected the most by the pandemic; sector exports in the January-August period decreased by 12 percent compared to the same period last year and to $10 billion 330 million value.
Ready-wear industry started to recover with normalization period in Europe and the removal of the lockdowns. The sector exports in June increased by 25 percent and to $1 billion 357 million value, and maintained that increase also in July. Ready-wear exports in July increased to $1 billion 812 million, by 8.5 percent compared to the July 2019. The recovery also maintained in August and the sector exports reached $1 billion 545 million value with an 11 percent increase.
‘’We will exceed $17 billion of export value.’’
Burak Sertbas, the board chairman of Aegean Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters Association stated that ready-wear industry started 2020 well and that the sector made a 15 percent increase in its Jan-Feb exports. Sertbas said:
‘’ We thought that there would be much more demand within the pandemic and we would close the year with good export figures, we did not take into account that the virus can also be in Turkey.
All our markets have been closed as of March. Our main market is Europe. Our exports came to a standstill here. This decline continued until June. With the normalization after June, our exports started to increase again. There is a 12 percent annual decline, but the trend shows that we will catch up with last year and even pass it a little bit. We anticipate that we will exceed $ 17 billion this year. As long as the second wave does not shut us down from Europe. “
“Europe is slowly breaking away from the Far East.”
Sertbas stated that European buyers have a plan to complete their shopping from the immediate environment and Turkey is included in that environment. He said:
‘’ This plan will be realized immediately due to pandemic. We cannot meet the entire capacity of the Far East, but there are currently difficulties in purchasing, especially from Indonesia and China. I think the orders shifting from there are reflected in our numbers. As long as we can match the price, it will increase even more. We think that Europe is slowly breaking away from the Far East.’’
source: AA / translated by Melisa Karayusufoglu