Textile exports 2019 begins with a decline. The Turkish textile and raw materials industry increased its exports by 5.5% in January-February 2019 period, while it decreased by 6.6% in value. This points to a period when we sell much and earn less.
Textile industry is experiencing loss in exports for the first 2 months of the year. Textile and raw materials industry exports decreased by 6.6% and reached the value of 1.6 billion dollars in January-February period. Exports increased by 4.7% in Turkey overall increasing up to 26.7 billion dollars in the same period. The textile industry made a weak start to the year, showing a 3.7% decline in exports in January and 9.5% in February.
In February, most exports of textiles and raw materials were made to 28 EU member countries. This exports declined by 12% to about 403 million dollars. In January-February period, exports were 840 million dollars with a decrease of 10.7%. The second country group with the highest exports were African countries. Exports to this market decrease by 8.2% in February to 78 million dollars. The change in the January-February period was – 1% to around 160 million dollars. The largest export decline in February were to the Middle East Countries. Exports to these countries decreased by 14% in February and by 15.6% in January-February. Top 5 countries with the highest share in Turkey’s textile exports in this period were as follows; Italy, Germany, USA, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.
In terms of quantity, textile exports increased by 5.5% compared to the same period of the previous year to 382 thousand tons in January-February 2019 period. In February alone, exports quantity declined by 0.4%.
Textile exports 2019 begins with a decline. Woven fabric was the largest product group
In this period, the most exported product was woven fabric. This product group formed 22.9% of the textile and raw materials exports. However, exports of woven fabrics decreased by 10.8% compared to the same period of the previous year and reached a value of 370 million dollars.
The second important product group was yarn. In the January-February period of 2019, yarn exports decrease by 7.1% to 151 million dollars. The third product group was technical textiles with a share of 15.4%. This product group achieved a value of approximately 248 million dollars with a decline of 3.1%. In the same period, fiber exports increased by 18.7% and reached about 122 million dollars. Exports of knitted fabrics of Turkish textile manufacturers were realized as 238 million dollars with a decrease of 5%.
Exports in home textile fabrics declined
In the January-February period of 2019, exports of home textiles decreased by 15.3% to about 69 million dollars. The most important product in this group was curtain fabric. Exports of this product decreased by 16.6% to 49 million dollars. In the second row, the exports of upholstery fabrics decreased by 17.2%, while the terry-type fabrics caught a 3% increase in exports.
Exports of home textiles products amounted to 273 million dollars in January-February 2019 period with a decrease of 10%. The most important product group in home textiles were towels and cleaning cloths with a 34% share. Exports of this product amounted to approximately 94 million dollars with a decrease of 7.3%.