Turkey: Medical goods exports fetch $1.4B in 2020

By Yusuf Sahbaz

IZMIR, Turkey (AA) - Turkey's medical textile goods export reached $1.4 billion in 2020, the Aegean Exporters Association (EIB) said on Tuesday.

Jak Eskinazi, the EIB head coordinator, said export of textile products is recovering.

"Last year, despite the epidemic, there was only 8% export loss in textile and raw materials, compared to 2019. In the Aegean region, goods worth $240 million were exported, an increase of 6%," he said.

Saying that there was a strong demand for the medical textile and active sportswear products during the epidemic, Eskinazi noted Turkey's technical textile exports in 2020 increased by 76%, reaching $3 billion compared to the previous year.

In technical textile products, exports from the Aegean region rose to $194 million, an increase of 98%, he said.

Additionally, in the subgroups, Turkey's medical technical textile exports saw a 22-fold increase, while the exports from the Aegean region saw a nearly 46-fold increase – reaching $92 million.

“Surgical dresses and masks have an important share in the increase of medical technical textile exports," he added.

*Writing by Yunus Girgin in Ankara