Turkey to gain from Sino-US textile trade spat

26 Jul '05

2 min read

Turkey is most likely to benefit from the US quota restritions on Chinese textile.

Seyit Sahan, CEO of Kayseri-based Sanset and MHS Textile's said cheap and unqualified Chinese textile goods were deterimental to producers in several countries. But, Sahan indicates that this has had limited impact on their company.

"The increase in demand for our products continues," he notes. For Sahan, the underlying reason for this is the US embargo on Chinese textile imports.

US retailers have turned to Turkey, and in their case, have come down to purchasing socks. He informed that US client have accepted their company products and are currently working on samples. Sahan adds that his company will start exporting socks to the US beginning August 2005.

Only issue that concerns him is the prevailing low exchange rates. He stated that export companies earn low profits due to the over-valued Turkish lira.

MHS and Sanset, have so far, jointly exported almost 2 million pairs of socks in 2004.

These socks were made of high quality cotton in European standards. The two factories exported 2,500,000 pairs of socks ($1.1 million) to Germany, France and Canada in the first six months of 2005. The firm will begin exports to Austria in September 2005. There is a huge demand for socks in big chain stores in these countries. The firm produces socks for men, women and children.

"The MHS Textile produces more than 2,000,000 pairs of socks annually. We established the Sanset Textile last year. Our target is to produce 7,000,000 pairs of socks annually," says a confident Sahan.

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