Local furniture firm to expand into China

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Yavuz Altop, chairman of Turkish furniture firm Yataş, has said Yataş bedding products will be sold at 275 Chinese stores in five years thanks to the recently inked distrbution agreement. Company photo

Yataş, a Turkish bed and home products firm, has signed a distribution agreement with a Chinese company with the aim of opening 275 stores in the next five years amid plans to also establish a production plant in Iran.

The distribution agreement in China is part of the company’s plan to expand abroad, Chairman Yavuz Altop said in a recent interview with the Hürriyet

Daily News. “We have been participating in an expo in Guangzhou province of China for three years, and a Chinese investor was following us there. We have finally signed a distribution agreement with this investor.”

Altop said it was the company’s first distribution agreement in China.

A 1,000-square-meter showroom will be opened in September in Guangzhou where the products of Yataş Bedding, including beds, bed bases and home textile products, will be introduced, he said, adding that the number of stores using the Yataş Bedding brand would reach 275 in the next five years.

China’s growing middle class tends to buy import products instead of local products, Altop said.

Iran plant in pipeline

Altop said Yataş also had 18 stores in Iran. “The Turkish furniture sector mostly makes exports to Iran. But the Iranian government took a decision to terminate the imports of finished products. But we didn’t abandon 18 stores without products. We plan to found a production plant in Iran with a vendor,” he said. Yataş has 60 stores in 45 countries, including Iran, Iraq, European and North African countries, he added.

Altop said they exported 20 percent of their total productions to more than 45 countries around the world, adding that they aimed to increase their exports. He also said they would open two stores in London next month, while the company also has a distribution project planned in Germany for the coming years. Yataş has three stores in Cairo and Alexandria, but the continuing violence in Egypt means the company is closely observing the situation. Yataş posted 192 million liras in turnover last year.