Source: http://www.igeme.gov.tr

 

The establishment of modern textile and clothing industry in Turkey depended on industrialization efforts in sixties and seventies. Heavy investments on modern machinery park and human resources reached the highest level in nineties. Today, the textiles and clothing industry is the most outward oriented industry that can compete with other countries in international markets in terms of high quality and wide range of products.

The value of textiles and clothing industry production is around US$ 30 billion. Turkey exported US$ 23 billion worth textile and clothing in 2007, and ranked 5 th in clothing exports in the world. With this amount, it had a share of 21% in total exports of Turkey.

Since the Turkish textile and clothing industry is a world giant in terms of production and exports, the sector needs textile and clothing supplies in large quantity and in wide variety. Therefore, the textile and clothing supply industry, which was established to meet the needs of the domestic textile and clothing industry, has shown significant development and now serves the world textile and clothing industry as well. The industry produces every kind of textile and clothing supply such as wadding, zippers, buttons, hooks and eyes, labels, lace, trimmings, lining, interlining, tapes, elastic, ribbons etc. in large quantities and with the best quality.

Since Istanbul is the clothing production and fashion center, the majority of textile and clothing supply manufacturers are located in İstanbul. The rest are in İzmir, Bursa, Denizli, Gaziantep and Kayseri.

The companies in the sector were organized in 1995 under Clothing Findings and Trimmings Association. The association, has over one hundred members, organizes seminars on quality standards, analyses the sector and inquires collective solutions for sector problems, trains qualified personnel for the sector and introduces the sector to the local and international markets by organizing national and international fairs. The association makes a considerable contribution to increase exports of sector.

Today, consumers are showing increasing concern for health and environmental issues and demanding products that do not cause health and environmental risks. Since many textile and clothing supply products such as lace, elastic, labels, tapes, ribbons are in direct contact with the skin, the reliability of these products is as important for human health as other parts of clothing or textile products. Being aware of these trends, Turkish textile and clothing supply products such as lace, elastic, labels, tapes, ribbons are in direct contact with the skin, the reliability of these products is as important for human health as other parts of clothing or textile products. Being aware of these trends, Turkish textile and clothing supply producers are now becoming much more sensitive to health and the environment, and are adapting themselves to developments in international markets towards healthier and more environment-friendly products by adopting environment management systems and obtaining eco-Iabels. Today many companies in this sector use private eco-Iabels such as Oeko- Tex Standard 100 etc.