Turkish kitchenware event creates $500M business volume

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - A Turkish kitchenware exhibition, the Producer-Brand Summit, generated $500 million business volume by gathering wholesalers, importers and retail traders from 50 countries.

Foreign representatives from the EU, Middle East, Balkans, Africa, Russia, Turkic nations and Turkish businesspeople from the kitchenware sector met during the 7th edition of the two-day summit, which had started last Thursday, in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya.

As part of the event, 150 Turkish companies introduced their products in many groups, including metal, plastic, home textile and porcelain, and reached their target markets.

The kitchenware sector, of which market size is around $10 billion, raises its exports around 15% on average annually.

- Gathering sector players

The summit enables the sectors to raise their exports to Romania, Poland, Hungary and Croatia this year, said Mesut Oksuz, head of the organizer of the event Turkish Houseware Association (Zucder).

He said the event, which hosted foreign companies from 10 countries last year, raised the sector's trade volume 30% in 2018.

"When we decided to organize the summit for the first time, we didn't just set out to raise exports, we also wanted to bring importers, retailers, and wholesalers together," he stressed.

He added that if the sector players do not know each other, they cannot improve their exports and trade.

"We achieved to reach $500 million business volume with our summit this year," he underlined.

- Turkey to reduce kitchenware imports

"We export mostly to Germany, the Netherlands, U.K. and U.S., and aim to close this year with $5.5 billion exports, while our exports exceeded $3 billion in the first nine months of this year," he underlined.

He reminded that the country's kitchenware exports were $4.7 billion and imports were $1.1 billion last year.

"We expect a decline of 31% in our imports in 2019 and 50% in 2020, while we targeted over $6 billion exports in 2020," he added.

Oksuz also said the kitchenware sector is the most branding sector in Turkey.

The kitchenware sector's price per kilogram in exports is around $3.6 while half of its exports were made to the EU countries, he stressed.

He said the sector will diversify its products for raising exports and focus on domestic production to reduce imports.

Oksuz underlined that the sector is currently working on digitalization to raise its share in the e-commerce.