Furniture exporters eyeing American markets: Association

ISTANBUL

Turkish furniture manufacturers are eyeing the American markets to ramp up exports, according to a sectoral association.

“Turkey has an important potential in terms of design and quality, in particular. In this regard, we aimed to increase our exports to the United States from last year’s $200 million to $1 billion,” said Mustafa Balcı, chairperson of the Association of Furniture Industrialists of Turkey (MOSDER).

“The United States continues to experience commercial tensions with China due to the corona virus outbreak. Foreign purchasing delegations continue their contact with high-capacity manufacturers in Turkey. We carry out this process with our exporting companies,” he added.

“Especially in exports, our new market target will be the countries of the America continent and especially the United States,” said Balcı.

“The R&D teams of the sector closely follow the concepts of these regions. Even gaining a 5 percent share from the U.S. market will accelerate our exports.”

Turkey aims to increase the total furniture exports from last year’s $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion.

The country’s furniture exports hit $1.5 billion in June, with an increase of 48 percent compared with the same month of 2019, according to the Istanbul Furniture Paper and Forestry Product Exporters Association.

“We have offset the losses we saw in three months due to the pandemic in a single month,” said Ahmet Güleç, the head of the association.