İHKİB Innovation and Design Center, which gathers the activities of the Istanbul Ready-made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association (IHKİB) in the fields of textile, ready-made clothing, fashion, education and digitalization under one roof in an area of 14 thousand square meters, was opened with the participation of the Minister of Trade Bolat and the Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır.
Speaking at the opening of the center in Bağcılar Mahmutbey, Minister Bolat reminded that they opened the Chemistry Technology Center in Gebze approximately 22 months ago and a very large laboratory in Gaziantep last year.
Talking about the importance of laboratories, where the technical qualifications of the products are documented and approved by accredited institutions, in terms of exports, Bolat said that IHKİB Innovation and Design Center is also important in the fight against unsafe products.
Noting that the Ministry of Commerce also provides support to this center, Bolat continued his words as follows: "This is not just a textile laboratory, it is a valuable laboratory center covering all many sectors such as chemistry, toys and plastics. It was known as Ekoteks. From an export perspective, Ekoteks is referred to as the first known laboratory. It is a facility established in 1998 as the first subsidiary of İHKİB. Today, it will serve our exporters in this magnificent campus. It will provide services not only to our textile and clothing exporters, but to all our exporters. Here "IHKİB also has an academy, where training activities will be carried out. Istanbul Fashion Academy and DDM, or IHKİB Digital Transformation Center, are also located here. This beautiful work was created here with teamwork."
"2026 was the year of recovery in textile and clothing, as in every field"
Minister Bolat stated that the news about textiles and ready-made clothing was positive this year and made the following evaluations: "The decrease in exports and employment in textiles and ready-made clothing in 2023, 2024 and 2025 stopped. The increase in textiles started in 2026, and there is a near-breakeven performance in ready-made clothing. There was no loss of employment. Türkiye's largest source of employment with 860 thousand people is the textile and clothing sector. Including carpets and home textiles. That is why for us It is a valuable sector like the Khashoggi Diamond. We are determined to always advance and develop this sector. When there are some difficult days, we always say 'Let's keep our heads high, we will overcome these difficulties, the sectoral transformation process is going on.' "I said."
Explaining that the economic slowdown in important markets led to a decrease in demand in the past years, Bolat said, "But our successful industrialists, textile and clothing manufacturers do not worry about such situations and create their own solutions. We also support them. They turned to design, branding and efficiency. In this sense, they renewed themselves and 2026 was the year of recovery in textiles and clothing, as in every field." he said.
Reminding that he visited the stands when he visited the Istanbul Ready-made Clothing and Fashion Fair (IFCO) and Texhibition Istanbul Fabric, Yarn and Textile Accessories Fair this year, Bolat said that 90 percent of the participants said that things were going well this year.
"We will consolidate the success (in textile and ready-made clothing exports) in this center"
Minister of Commerce Bolat stated that global ready-made clothing exports have reached 626 billion dollars, and that Türkiye has a 3 percent share of this trade, ranks 8th in the world, and in the EU, the ranking varies between 3rd and 4th over the years.
Bolat, who informed that global textile and raw materials exports reached 269 billion dollars, made the following statements: "When we add up both, we are talking about a world trade of approximately 900 billion dollars. We received a share of 31 billion dollars from here, that is, equivalent to 3 percent. We will expand this together. In this center we opened today, we will increase the unit kilogram value by providing added value to our export products through the Istanbul Fashion Academy and Ekoteks laboratories and further increase this success (in textile and ready-made clothing exports)." We will reinforce it."
Bolat explained that thanks to design and added value in ready-made clothing, they can produce products with a kilogram value of up to 100 dollars in exports.
"Export expectations for the last quarter have increased"
Minister Bolat stated that another indicator of improvement in textile and ready-made clothing is the capacity utilization rate and said, "The ready-made clothing capacity use rate, which was 74.7 percent in September last year, is 77.4 percent this year. There has been an increase of 2.7 percentage points. The employment protection supports provided by our government through KOSGEB played a really important role in this sense." he said.
Talking about the support given to the textile and ready-made clothing sectors, Bolat said that the export expectation index for the fourth quarter of the year in these two sectors increased by 3.8 points and reached the level of 100.
Sharing examples of the support they provide in textile and ready-made clothing for value-added production, Bolat said, "Currently, 24 brands in ready-made clothing and 40 brands in textile are supported with Turquality and brand support programs. In terms of participation in international fairs abroad, individual participation in 228 fairs and national participation in 58 international fairs were supported. Our support for sectoral trade delegations and purchasing delegations also continued." he said.
"We will continue to maintain our political stability and economic reforms"
Minister of Commerce Bolat stated that they are working together with all stakeholders to increase exports and talked about the successes achieved in this field in the last 25 years.
Underlining that annual exports of goods and services reached 409 billion dollars as of September, Bolat said that the national income increased to 1.7 trillion dollars.
Bolat said, "We will continue to maintain our political stability, support economic reforms, our industry, agriculture, services sector, exporters, tradesmen and farmers. We will give incentives to our young entrepreneurs." he said.
