TGSD President Ramazan Kaya: “The future of the ready-made clothing industry depends on transformation and public support”

The ready-made clothing industry, which exported a total of 406 billion dollars in the first 100 years of the Turkish Republic, focused on transformation. Stating that they are Turkey’s third most exporting sector, TGSD President Ramazan Kaya said, “Inflation in Europe, changing consumer trends after the pandemic and the problems in the Turkish economy caused us to experience losses not only in our exports but also in employment, and this made the transformation in our sector inevitable. However, we must make this transformation with the sector and the public hand in hand,” he said.

Turkish Clothing Manufacturers Association (TGSD), the most inclusive non-governmental organization in the ready-to-wear industry, held a press conference with the participation of TGSD Presidents Ramazan Kaya and Sanem Dikmen and Economic Advisor Can Fuat Gürlesel, before the Istanbul Ready-to-Wear Conference to be held on 12-13 October.

At the meeting, information was given about the conference, which is one of the most important organizations of the Turkish ready-made clothing industry, which broke a record with 1,000 physical participants last year and 1,200 meetings were held with nearly 50 purchasing offices and brands, it was disclosed that, expectations and targets for the coming period while the first nine months of the ready-made clothing industry were evaluated.

“We need to take a few steps back and focus on making the leap”

Stating that the sector should accept the need for change and transformation and take action as soon as possible in order to adapt to changing conditions, increase exports and competitiveness, Kaya said, “The most important element that will bring success in the transformation process and our most important competitive power will be our flexibility. We no longer define flexibility as just the capacity to fulfill incoming orders, or flexibility in manufacturing, as we always did. We need to have a flexible structure, from our management processes to our human resources, from our digital infrastructure to our relations with the public. In addition, if we predict that the quantities in our production and exports will decrease, we will definitely focus on the production of higher value-added products and higher-priced exports. Ultimately, we must ensure product-market-brand diversity and create more added value. This may take us a few steps back at first, but it will allow us to jump much faster after a year. We must now abandon resistance and create new habits,” he said.

Sanem Dikmen: “We will bring together hundreds of brands from abroad with our domestic producers”

TGSD President Sanem Dikmen gave information about the 16th Istanbul Ready-to-Wear Conference, which will be held on 12-13 October. Explaining that the conference will be held with the theme of Transformative Journey this year, Dikmen said, “We will talk about the upcoming transformation process, the habits we need to acquire, and the changes in the way of doing business, together with our stakeholders from Turkey and abroad. On the first day of our event, we will discuss the most important issues of our industry such as traceability, transparency, circular economy and wearable technology, and the second day, as every year, we have determined as the ‘B2B Bilateral Business Meetings’ day. We will bring together purchasing groups representing hundreds of brands from many countries, especially Europe, with our domestic producers and prepare a commercial platform for them to establish new markets and new business connections.”