Turkey wants to tighten up China textile imports: clothing firms

Turkey wants to impose new requirements on textile firms importing material from China, alarming leaders of one of the country’s biggest export industries, three clothing company executives told Reuters.

They said the plans were discussed at a meeting in Ankara on Monday between economy ministry officials and representatives of textile companies, who had requested the meeting to ask that the planned measures be delayed or revised.

An economy ministry official confirmed the meeting at the ministry, without giving details. “We expressed support for production imports from China, but on the condition of bringing value added to Turkey,” the official said.

Turkey’s textile sector is a pillar of its economy. Ready-to-wear clothing accounted for about 18 percent of Turkey’s $157 billion exports last year.

Cuneyt Yavuz, Chief Executive Officer of jeans retailer Mavi , said he believed the government plan was aimed partly at tackling Turkey’s widening current account deficit, which reached $47.1 billion last year.

Turkey imported a quarter of its $10.1 billion textile imports from China in 2017, more than half of which are cotton fabrics and intermediary goods.

“The ministry had a plan to increase the documentation of textile imports from China,” Yavuz told Reuters. “This plan was only regarding the textile sector... and it would go into effect in mid-July”.

He said business leaders at the meeting told the ministry that material imported from China was sold on to other countries such as Russia and the United States, benefiting Turkey.

“I was told that there would be either a postponing or at least a revision in the ministry’s plans” which were originally intended to go into effect in mid-July, Yavuz said. (RTRS)