Textile industry eyes $5 billion exports to US

Yaselin Salih - NEW YORK

A delegation from the leading Turkish textile and apparel associations has recently traveled to the U.S., eyeing to boost the industry’s exports to the lucrative American market to at least $5 billion.

More than 40 Turkish companies attended the ‘I of the World’ event organized in New York. During the two-day event, Turkish exporters held talks with representatives of 120 American firms.

The trade delegation included members from the Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters’ Association (İTHİB) and Istanbul Apparel Exporters’ Association (İHKİB).

The Turkish textile industry has been sending trade delegations to the U.S., which is one of the strategic markets of local textile companies, over the past four years. This year, apparel companies joined them to explore opportunities in the U.S., the world’s largest importer of apparel.

Representatives from large brands, such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor and Calvin Klein, had talks with Turkish companies, people from the associations said.

“We will be able to see the results of those talks within two weeks,” they said, adding that Turkish companies target consumers from the middle- and high-income groups in the U.S.

Turkish companies have the capacity and high-quality products to meet demand from those consumer groups, they added.

The combined production capacity of the Turkish textile and apparel industries is around $82.4 billion, according to Ahmet Öksüz, the president of İTHİB.

“The purpose of the visit by the trade delegation is to help the textile and apparel companies increase their access to the U.S. market,” he added.

The U.S. is the eighth largest export market for the Turkish textile industry, Öksüz said, noting that it ranked third in terms of textile exports in the January-September period of 2023.

In the short-term, they aim to climb up in the list of the U.S.’ top textile importers and become an indispensable supplier for the U.S., he added.

The Turkish apparel industry’s shipments to the U.S. market amounted to $682 million in the first nine months of the year, said Mustafa Paşahan, the president of İHKİB, adding that the U.S.’s apparel imports are around $126 billion.

“We are targeting the middle- and high-income groups in the U.S. We do not want to sell cheap products. There is sufficient capacity in Türkiye for the American market.”

He noted that the industry’s exports to the U.S. amounted to $1 billion.

“This is not enough… We aim to increase our exports [to the U.S.] to $2 billion,” Paşahan said.

Türkiye’s textile and apparel exports to the U.S. stood at $1.7 billion last year.