ANTALYA - State Minister Kursat Tuzmen said on Sunday that Turkey exported goods worth of 15.6 billion dollars between January 1- May 15, 2003 and that the world textile and ready-to-wear trade would be made without any quotas as of January 1, 2005.
Addressing the seminar on ''Employment, Investment and Unjust Competition Problems'' Tuzmen said that exports increased by 34.6 percent and reached 15.6 percent between January 1-May 15, 2003.
''According to the 2002 data of textile and ready-to-wear exports, 63 percent of Turkey's exports are made to EU countries and the U.S. followed EU with 14 percent share. Among EU countries; Germany is ranked the first with 24.5 percent, Britain is ranked the second with 13 percent, France is ranked the third with 6.4 percent and Italy follows France with 4.3 percent. Our exports to these countries which have consumers that give importance to good quality products show that we export qualified products,'' said Tuzmen.
Tuzmen noted that textile industry in Turkey is composed of big-scale companies, adding that more than 80 percent of ready-to-wear companies, on the other hand were small and medium scale enterprises (SMSEs).
Emphasizing that one of the most important complaint issues of the sector was unfair competition atmosphere caused by export of cheap and low quality products, Tuzmen said that Turkey was implementing anti-dumping tax to seven different countries, mainly to Far Eastern countries, within the scope of anti-dumping investigations carried out in 12 different production groups in textile and ready-made clothing sector.
Tuzmen emphasized that the most important development, which would affect textile and ready-made clothing sector, would be lifting of quotas implemented by developed countries to developing countries regarding textile and ready-made clothing export within the scope of textile and ready-made clothing agreement. He said that world textile and ready-made clothing trade would be made without quotas as of January 1, 2005 because ten years of transition process that was envisioned in the agreement would end on that date.
(ÖS-GC) 25.05.2003