Seeing Turkey as a great potential export market for textile products, Indonesia Government and textile exporters hope to tap more Turkish market share.
Turkey is the 6th largest textile and apparel exporter in the world and the demand of raw material is huge in the country. Indonesia is eyeing at this opportunity to increase supply of various raw materials such as synthetic staple fibre, in which Indonesia holds dominance.
It’s worth mentioning here that Ankara, a city with huge textile base in Turkey, was the largest export destination for Indonesia’s synthetic staple fibre in 2019 which valued US $ 366 million.
However, overall textile exports to Turkey have been falling for some years and, in January-August ’20, the exports dropped by 49.79 per cent to clock US $ 168.90 million as compared to US $ 333.60 million in the same period of 2019.
The main reason for this continuous decline is that Indonesia currently faces tariff and duties in its exports to Turkey. The Government, therefore, is working on the Indonesia-Turkey Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IT-CEPA) in order to eliminate tariff barriers and support textile exporters of the country.
Endorsing the same, Didi Sumedi, Director-General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Trade, Indonesia recently commented, “Tapping more market share in Turkey will open doors for us in the regions like North Africa, Middle East and Europe.”
