Due to the weakening Euro, Turkey’s apparel industry sustained US $ 1.2 billion in export losses year-on-year in the first half of this year. The ready-to-wear textile exports of Turkish companies slumped by 85 million (on a unit basis) in the first half compared to the same period a year ago and stood at US $ 3.565 billion.
Hikmet Tanrıverdi, President, Istanbul Apparel Exporters Association said the total export volume of the sector faced a 13.3 per cent decrease year-on-year and decreased from US $ 9.4 billion to US $ 8.2 billion in the first half. Yearly losses would drop to as low as 1.8 per cent when compared using a parity-adjusted calculation, highlighting that the losses stemmed mostly from fluctuations in the euro-dollar parity. “We sold US $ 6.4 billion worth of clothing to the EU countries ranked among the top 10 (export partners of the industry) in the January-June period last year. The same amount stands at US $ 5.3 billion this year. While only our Romania-bound exports showed an increase, there is a decline in exports going to Germany, UK, Spain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Denmark and Belgium,” Tanrıverdi said.
