Turkey’s Broad Approach Wins Many Importing...
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32 AUGUST 2018 / HOMETEXTILESTODAY.COM Turkey’s Broad Approach Wins Many Importing Partners A plethora of home textiles products produced by an end-to-end integrated structure, combined with an awareness of the challenges of doing business today and into the future, is keeping Turkey in the mix By Joanne Friedrick Turkey’s home textiles industry is based on a model of business diversity, offering a vast array of products including towels, sheets and bedspreads, curtains, blankets and quilts, pillows and cushions, table linens, lace and more. In 2016, Turkey was the world’s third largest sup- plier of bed sheets, fourth largest maker of towels and fifth in the world for bedspreads. Turkey, according to the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Economy, is the world’s fourth largest home textile supplier and second largest to the European Union. It exports about 60% of its total production. In 2017, total exports topped $2.6 billion. Its impact on the U.S. market isn’t quite as pro- nounced as in Europe – Turkey doesn’t crack the Top 10 for U.S. textile imports – but recent figures from the U.S. Customs Department’s Office of Textiles and Apparel showed a significant bump in business over the past year. For the year-to-date ended May 2018, made-ups from Turkey (which include home textiles along with floor coverings and miscellaneous products like handbags and luggage) totaled $331 million, for a 29.5% increase over 2017. Some of Turkey’s best-known products are its towels, often called “Turkish towels,” and its lace, which has many textile applications, including its use in home-related products. The Ministry of Economy noted that in 2017 its leading exports were towels, bathrobes and dressing gowns, fol- lowed by bed linens, furnishing and curtain fabrics and bedspreads. The towel, bathrobe and dress- ing gown category, which includes kitchen linens, reached $885.5 million in 2017 — a 4.4% increase over 2016. In a 2015 Rumi Forum report, “Turkey Then and Now: From the Mustafa Ataturk Era to Tayyip Erdogan,” author Uruj Perwaiz wrote that Turkey “is recognized as one of the growth engines of the newly emerged, multi-polar, global system,” hav- ing risen to the 17th largest economy in the world and sixth largest in Europe. Speaking specifically to the textiles market, which includes clothing as well as home textiles, Perwaiz said Turkey has been competitive because of its qualified labor force and its integrated struc- ture, which includes everything from raw materials through delivery of goods. “This means it can win important shares in exports, employment and gross national product,” Perwaiz wrote. Many of the major textile-producing cities have developed integrated processes that go from yarn and fabric production to design, dying, finishing and sewing. The country boasts an estimated 56,000 textile and clothing companies that employ about 2 mil- lion individuals. Turkey is not without its challenges, however. An unsettled government and its proximity to areas held by ISIS have impacted exports, according to the World Bank. A Foreign Market Consulting Ltd. report from May 2016 also mentions that produc- tion is moving to lower labor cost countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and China and companies are importing from lower-cost suppli- ers in China, India and Myanmar. Both the Turkish textile and clothing associa- tions, according to a report from Just-Style, want more government support via subsidies and incen- tives. In February, Nihat Zeybeçi, from the Ministry of Economy, promised it would provide more incentives to focus on the technologies of Turkey’s Industry 4.0 initiative, which is meant to strengthen data processing and information via Cloud, IoT and sensor technology. Turkey’s Ministry of Economy cited yet another challenge: the increasing demand for healthier and more environmentally friendly products. To answer this call, many Turkish manufacturers are adopting ISO 9000 standards and some are also developing eco-friendly labels. The country’s producers are also very fashion aware and have created modern designs with unique motifs to fit with the home decoration industry’s current tastes and preferences. HTT Photo courtesy ABC Tekstil
Transcript of Turkey’s Broad Approach Wins Many Importing...
32 AUGUST 2018 / HOMETEXTILESTODAY.COM
Turkey’s Broad Approach Wins Many Importing Partners
A plethora of home textiles products produced by an end-to-end integrated structure, combined with an awareness of the challenges of doing business today and into the future, is keeping Turkey in the mix
By Joanne Friedrick
Turkey’s home textiles industry is based on a model of business diversity, offering a vast array of products including towels, sheets and bedspreads, curtains, blankets and quilts, pillows and cushions, table linens, lace and more.
In 2016, Turkey was the world’s third largest sup-plier of bed sheets, fourth largest maker of towels and fifth in the world for bedspreads. Turkey, according to the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Economy, is the world’s fourth largest home textile supplier and second largest to the European Union. It exports about 60% of its total production. In 2017, total exports topped $2.6 billion.
Its impact on the U.S. market isn’t quite as pro-nounced as in Europe – Turkey doesn’t crack the Top 10 for U.S. textile imports – but recent figures from the U.S. Customs Department’s Office of Textiles and Apparel showed a significant bump in business over the past year. For the year-to-date ended May 2018, made-ups from Turkey (which include home textiles along with floor coverings and miscellaneous products like handbags and luggage) totaled $331 million, for a 29.5% increase over 2017.
Some of Turkey’s best-known products are its towels, often called “Turkish towels,” and its lace, which has many textile applications, including its use in home-related products. The Ministry of
Economy noted that in 2017 its leading exports were towels, bathrobes and dressing gowns, fol-lowed by bed linens, furnishing and curtain fabrics and bedspreads. The towel, bathrobe and dress-ing gown category, which includes kitchen linens, reached $885.5 million in 2017 — a 4.4% increase over 2016.
In a 2015 Rumi Forum report, “Turkey Then and Now: From the Mustafa Ataturk Era to Tayyip Erdogan,” author Uruj Perwaiz wrote that Turkey “is recognized as one of the growth engines of the newly emerged, multi-polar, global system,” hav-ing risen to the 17th largest economy in the world and sixth largest in Europe.
Speaking specifically to the textiles market, which includes clothing as well as home textiles, Perwaiz said Turkey has been competitive because of its qualified labor force and its integrated struc-ture, which includes everything from raw materials through delivery of goods. “This means it can win important shares in exports, employment and gross national product,” Perwaiz wrote. Many of the major textile-producing cities have developed integrated processes that go from yarn and fabric production to design, dying, finishing and sewing.
The country boasts an estimated 56,000 textile and clothing companies that employ about 2 mil-lion individuals.
Turkey is not without its challenges, however. An unsettled government and its proximity to areas held by ISIS have impacted exports, according to the World Bank. A Foreign Market Consulting Ltd. report from May 2016 also mentions that produc-tion is moving to lower labor cost countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and China and companies are importing from lower-cost suppli-ers in China, India and Myanmar.
Both the Turkish textile and clothing associa-tions, according to a report from Just-Style, want more government support via subsidies and incen-tives. In February, Nihat Zeybeçi, from the Ministry of Economy, promised it would provide more incentives to focus on the technologies of Turkey’s Industry 4.0 initiative, which is meant to strengthen data processing and information via Cloud, IoT and sensor technology.
Turkey’s Ministry of Economy cited yet another challenge: the increasing demand for healthier and more environmentally friendly products. To answer this call, many Turkish manufacturers are adopting ISO 9000 standards and some are also developing eco-friendly labels. The country’s producers are also very fashion aware and have created modern designs with unique motifs to fit with the home decoration industry’s current tastes and preferences. HTT
Photo courtesy ABC Tekstil
Turkey ranks seventh in world cotton pro-duction, having produced 738,000 tons in 2015-2016.
The country is the third largest mohair producer in the world.
In 2017, Turkey exported $67.4 million in bedding and similar furnishings, including quilts, eiderdowns, cushions, pouffes and pillows.
Turkey’s home textiles market is concen-trated in Istanbul, Denizli, Bursa, Tekirdag, Izmir, Gaziantep, Kayseri and Usak.
Denizli, which is home to Turkey’s cotton towel and bathrobe business, exports about 90% of its production.
The Istanbul Textile and Apparel Exporters’ Associations (ITKIB) was formed in 1986 by the Secretariat of Foreign Trade.
Turkey’s major home textiles trade fairs are Evteks and HomeTex, both of which are held in Istanbul.
Towels, bathrobes, dressing gowns and kitchen linens account for about 34% of Turkey’s home textiles exports.
Textile exports are expected to rise in 2018 by about 1.1%, which is what they grew by in the third quarter of 2017.
Lace-making in Turkey dates to the mid-1500s.
Fast Facts
Sources: Turkey Ministry of Economy, UN Comtrade, Just-Style
Turkey’s Home Textiles Exports* (% share in 2017)
Source: U.S. Customs Department/Office of Textiles and Apparel
Towels, bathrobes and dressing gowns
Bed linens
Furnishings and curtain fabrics
Other home textile products
Bedspreads and other furnishings
Curtain, drapes and interior blinds
Tulles and crocheted fabrics
Sleeping bags, pillows and quilts
Blankets
Table linens
33.9%
20.3%
17.3%
8.9%
5.3%
4.3%
3.9%
2.7%
2.0%
1.3%
Turkey’s 2017 Home Textiles Major Export Markets
*(Representing 2% or less) Spain, Iraq, Romania, Austria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Belgium, Algeria, Switzerland, UAE
Germany
US
Bulgaria
France
UK
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
Iran
Others*
40%
33%
5%
5%
5%
4%
4%
3%
3%
17%
11%
6%
5%
5%
5%
4%
3%
3%
41%
Products: Bath Towels, Beach Towels, Hotel Towels, Bath Mats, Kitchen Towels, Baby Towels, Bathrobes
What are your company’s product and sourcing strengths? Since 1996, our company has its own factory and has been in the terry towel business, which gives us exceptional expertise. Our product strengths lie
in producing various kinds of towels and bathrobes that have created new standards in softness, absorbency and high quality, coupled with continuous consumer centric innovation. Towels are a very important part of our bath rituals and the hardest working garment in use. So, for our customers we provide innovative designs to fit their lifestyle. Our main company policy is “The Customer Satisfaction” and we reinforce this policy by creating right and speedy service with high quality.
What major initiatives and new capabilities are you launching for 2018/2019, specifically for the North American marketplace: We are in a continuous process of expansion, enhancement and incorporating the latest technological innovation to ensure our customers the best possible quality in home textiles.
We use Air Cotton technology for our new product developments, which gives us very soft, fluffy and highly absorbent towels.
We will increase our hotel towel business based on the high demand. As such, we are setting ourselves up to be the ultimate source for these customers. Whether guests are only spending the night or enjoying a weeklong vacation, you’ll want to make sure they feel right at home with the luxury of quality hotel towels.
What are your plans for new product launches:As we know, today’s market has a greater number of new products than ever before. So, our primary focus as we step towards 2019 will be instructing product development executives into new product development processes to maximize successful launches.
We will be introducing super soft and super premium towels at the Heimtextil Fair in January 2019 in Frankfurt.
We are looking into designing a collection of plain and yarn-dyed towels for the North American market based on our market research and understanding of customer needs.
Describe your company’s current efforts in the areas of sustainability, product certification and eco-friendliness: Sustainability is an integral part of the overall objective of ABC Textile. We always try to achieve utmost customer satisfaction and render the best service within its quality, reliability and stability policies. Complying with Oeko-Tex standards and our company is sensitive toward environment awareness. It is a global certification that allows customers to easily identify textile products that pose no risk to human health.
Furthermore, our company holds GOTS certification which is required for organic production and gives importance to employee security in accordance with BSCI standards. The GOTS quality assurance system is based on on-site inspection and certification of the textile processing and trade chain. Our other certification includes ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System and SEDEX.
What is your outlook for business – both your company’s and the overall marketplace – in North America for 2018/2019:The market continues to be very dynamic and challenging so unique product offerings with value based pricing will be more important than ever for the coming year. We are expecting good growth in online sales platforms.
Innovative ideas and quick responses that will attract customers as the need to touch, feel and experience will be two crucial factors for North America’s
market. So, we are talking and communicating to our customers more than ever. Understanding them inspires us to create new designs to better meet their needs.
We are aiming to continue creating high-quality products that are comfortable and gentle on people’s bodies as well as to the environment. Our pursuit for better manufacturing and the establishment of high standards in our production are big parts of our endeavors.
AT I L L A
O Z D E M I R ,
G E N E R A L
M A N A G E R
New developments will launch at Heimtextil in January, 2019.
Pleasure for us to present our high quality products.
Factory/Head Office:
ABC Tekstil Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S.
Pinarkent Mah. Sahinler Kume Evler No:136 20170 Pamukkale - Denizli/TURKEY
New York Office/Showroom:
Roka Home Inc.
267 Fifth Avenue, Suite 910 New York, NY 10016
S P O N S O R E D C O N T E N T
C O U N T R Y S P O T L I G H T/ T U R K E Y
ABC TEKSTIL SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.
What are your company’s product and sourcing strengths?Our motto is “Innovation is Everything and Impossible is Nothing.” This motto gives us a great motivation to bring novelties to the industry and make our customers pioneers in the U.S. home textile market.
We use 100% Turkish Cotton which gives the best absorbency, softness and durability combined to achieve the best overall performance in our products. Besides high quality and service, our color consistency is one of the most important principals in production.
We are very well known for our high quality and ultimate service in our customer profile. We have
designers in our team that continuously follow color and fashion trends and create collections and products on time for our customers.
The most important factor in our success is the trust that we have built with our customers. We do not approach them as customers but as our partners. We always build relations and businesses thinking about the long term.
What major initiatives and new capabilities are you launching for 2018/2019, specifically for the North American marketplace:We are going into different product categories like bedding in addition to our current towels, bathmats and bathrobes.
As we always did in the past we will continuously bring innovative and novelty products to the market in bedding too.
Our new ERP systems will enable 100% control over our production lines and we will take our service to the top level.
We invite everyone to stay tuned to be the first to know the novelties in the industry.
We have a showroom on 230 Fifth Avenue in New York. And our U.S. office professionals are always ready to present the latest technologies and novelty products to our clients. We also introduce our new
collections to our partners at New York market weeks and Heimtextil Frankfurt every year.
What are your company’s current efforts in the areas of sustainability, product certification and eco-friendliness:We are making the use of GOTS certified organic cotton products for our customers more and more common. All of our products are Oeko-Tex certified. BCI cotton program is also one of our strategic programs to support the environmental friendly cotton growing. More importantly we are creating more durable towels made up of strong Turkish Cotton fibers: these towels last much more longer than any others in the market. This supports the environment as durable products that last longer help to consume less of everything in the supply chain, from towels to the cotton used in the production. So less natural sources are used in the long term.
What is your outlook for business – both your company’s and the overall marketplace – in North America for 2018/2019: We will grow together and stronger in an organic and healthy way by cooperating with our customers who are our partners. We may add only a few new customers to our current profile. We want to add more product categories other than towels, bathmats and bathrobes.
It is clear that online business will grow much more rapidly than it did in the past. Giant market players like Amazon will continue their growth and specialty stores will still be special for their high-end customer profile. New startup companies will bring new ideas and new approaches to the home textile market.
C A G R I
O VAY U R T
M A N A G I N G
D I R E C T O R
New York Office/Showroom:
230 Fifth Ave. Ste 1904
New York, NY 10001
Headquarters:
Denizili / Turkey
S P O N S O R E D C O N T E N T
C O U N T R Y S P O T L I G H T/ T U R K E Y
VERITAS TEKSTIL
To its core strengths in towels, robes and bathmats, Veritas plans to add bedding products to its line-up this year.
Veritas has made sustainability a cornerstone of its go-to-market strat-egy with Oeko-Tex and GOTS certifi cations, as well as the use of better Turkish Cotton yarns.
230 Fifth ave. Suite1904 New York, NY, 10001 I T: (646) 590 3894 I [email protected]
www.theveritas.com
INNOVATION IS EVERYTHING
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE
...BATH I BEDDING I HOME TEXTILE
S P O N S O R E D C O N T E N T
C O U N T R Y S P O T L I G H T/ T U R K E Y
What is your role in promoting Turkish textiles in the North American market with your new New York City exhibition and display center? Our company has been established to promote trade relations between Turkish and U.S.- based companies. With this aim we are gathering many powerful Turkish companies under an umbrella in a very convenient location in Manhattan, nearby the Fifth Avenue textiles showroom buidlings.
So far, we are representing eight high-quality producer companies in the home textile sector. Also, buyers who visit our office located at 10 East 34th Street just off Fifth Avenue can meet with carpet and apparel resources as well as companies from other sectors.
What major initiatives and new products are your exhibiting companies launching for 2018/2019, specifically for the North American marketplace: All the companies under our umbrella have different goals. Here are some of the highlights from several of our exhibiting companies:
BURKAY:We are showing hotel contract fabrics for all-sheer draperies and bed covers. We have also just started to bring digitally printed fabrics to the market and are working with jobbers and designers in the North American market on these programs.
KAYNAK:Our aim is to offer the products in the best quality combining the supreme technology in all stages of production and with the best competitive prices as much as we can for the market today, as it has been in the past. While holding to this principle, we will try to meet the inquiries of the North American marketplace in considering all requests. Hence, we’re working on the latest trends and sharing our product catalogue with our clients.
MS HOME TEXTILE:There are always new trends and market movers, especially in the United States so we develop new products for each market week and collabrate with our clients.
We’ve identified the trends and we are contacting and building relations with the major players in the North American market.
SÖKÜCÜLER TEKSTIL TICARET VE SANAYI: We are introducing our new products on our CD catalog as well as our online catalog on our website. Our director of sales in America will also introduce our products directly to our prospective customers.
Our new initiatives include that we are moving to rent a warehouse for online sales and to service our customers faster.
Plus we are planning to move from our old five-acre facility to our new modern 14-acre facility.
SONMEZ TEKSTILWe are planning to launch our muslin products and kitchen towels to the North American marketplace this year.
We have also expanded our research and development activities to improve our new fabrics and our product quality as well as our design department.
What is the outlook for business – both with specific Turkish companies and the overall marketplace – in North America for 2018/2019:Speaking for many of the exhibiting Turkish suppliers, Kaynak executives noted they are “very keen on being in New York market week again. For the time being, we’ve prepared and we are waiting to bring out our products directly with our current and possible customers. The best service and product with the best quality, including the outstanding staffs and advanced technology in all stages of the production, gives us more confidence against the rivals in this territory with the power that comes from the past.”
B A H A D I R
Ö Z TA N Y E L
C H I E F
E X E C U T I V E
O F F I C E R
S P O N S O R E D C O N T E N T
C O U N T R Y S P O T L I G H T/ T U R K E Y
TTC USA CONSULTING CORP.
Dıs Ticaret Kompleksi
Çobançesme Mevkii, Sanayi Cad. B Blok 34196
Yenibosna, Bahçelievleri, Istanbul, Türkiye
New York Office/Showroom:
10 East 34th Street, New York, 10016, USA
Eight Turkish home textiles companies are now showing at the new New York Turkish Trade Center, off ering a variety of bed, bath and window treatment products.
There are now Turkish Trade Centers worldwide in addition to the new New York City Center near the home textiles market buildings.
Discover Turkish Quality
in New York!
Turkish Trade Center New York 10 East 34th Street, New York, 10016, USA
www.ttcenter.com.tr • [email protected]
