ŞANKAYA: The importance we have been attaching to fashion and design has given us serious post-crisis advantage on europan markets. However, we may lose this competitive edge within 6-7 years if production and exports are not duly supported.p>
At the Regular General Assembly Meeting, Şenol Şankaya was unanimously reelected as the Chairman of Uludağ Textile and Apparel Exporters’ Association. Drawing attention to the current crisis in Europe, he noted that the priority given by Turkish businesses to fashion and design has provided them with significant advantages. He however stated that if no support is given to production and exports, Turkey may lose those advantages within 6-7 years and a similar crisis may reoccur.
Speaking at the Regular General Assembly of Uludağ Textile and Apparel Exporters’ Association, Chairman Şenol Şankaya stated that apparel manufacturing was a well-established industry with its intermediary units and that it was Turkey’s greatest advantage but complained that no adequate support was provided to exporters.
Şankaya said: “We can very clearly see the effects on Turkey of the first quarter of 2010. The post-crisis experience has shown how important are the speed and proximity to the markets. A lot of our customers now clearly see that doing business with the Far East is currently to their disadvantage. And this is a great opportunity for us as we have all levels of textile manufacturing available in our country from cotton processing to yarn, from knitting and weaving to dyeing.” Noting that an increase in cotton production output would be vitally important for the industry, Şankaya continued: “Unfortunately, we could very clearly observe as mistakes in the agricultural policy led to a downfall of domestic cotton production output from around 1 million tons to approximately 400 thousand tons. While in this crisis, we could be turning the trends to our advantage, as a result of wrong policies we have now unfortunately become United States’ biggest cotton customer. If our output were 1 million tons instead of 400 thousands, we could enjoy a great advantage, like we can observe in India’s example.”