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| Issue date:25/06/2009 |
| Source:Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel |
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Staff Reporters
Turkey is one of the main markets for textile machinery builders in the Middle East area due to the country's established textile production industry. However, with the market weakened by the global financial crisis, investments in new machines have been held back.
Some exhibitors in this year's International Textile Machinery Exhibition (ITM) 2009 exhibition, held early June in Istanbul, noticed that the Turkish market had been very quiet. Even though some visitors were talking about new projects, the plans would not be realised within a short time. In spite of this, the exhibitors found it important to stay in touch with customers by being present at major exhibitions in different regions. And in Turkey, it was ITM 2009.
Some exhibitors we spoke to at the show commented that the textile markets for their products had been shrinking significantly worldwide, while there is over-capacity to be reduced. But a slow pick-up of the spare parts business was observed, which indicated that the factories' machines have not been left idle.
Textile components
During the show, the Oerlikon Group announced the new opening of its worldwide first textile components store in Istanbul, and introduced the authorised dealer for Turkey, Kazım Erdoğan.
Iris Biermann, head of markets and product strategy, said that the store provides a one-stop-shop service for Oerlikon's customers, with the product portfolio including all components, spare parts and consumables relevant to ring spinning.
The store holds stock on the spot, which helps the customers to reduce machine down times and spare parts stock at the mills, she said.
A second store in Turkey will be opened later this year, followed by those in other countries, including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and China. "We are listening to our customer to see if additional products and services are needed, such as grinding service and delivery service," said Ms Biermann.
Iris Biermann, head of markets and product strategy, Oerlikon Textile Components (right) and the company's authorised dealer in Turkey, Kazım Erdoğan, at the first Oerlikon Textile Component Store opening in Istanbul. |
André Wissenberg, vice president of Oerlikon Textile corporate communications, pointed out that keeping in contact with the group's more than 5,000 customers worldwide was important when tackling a downturn.
He said that the strong decline in the global textile machinery market in 2008 was unprecedented. Before the worldwide financial crisis, the textile industry had already faced the unfavorable factors of over-capacities, high raw material and energy prices. The company does not expect an upturn in textile machinery market this year.
Urs Gull, director of sales and marketing, and Thomas Elsener, marketing service, SSM. |
Also coping with the influence of a weakened market, Urs Gull, director of sales / marketing of SSM, said that the textile industry had invested a lot in the past few years, hoping for a sustainable market. But now there was over-capacity, and the global markets for both household applications and clothing had shrunk.
"The good sign is that there are still activities in the spare parts business, indicating that the machines have not stopped running in the factories," he remarked. On the other hand, he noticed that there were more activities on second-hand machinery, while customers were expecting "very good price". "We need to fight for each simple order," he added.
Erwin Devloo, marketing communication manager of Picanol |
Picanol also observed that spare part sales have been picking up slowly while the market was consuming the over-capacity. Erwin Devloo, marketing communication manager of Picanol, said that many buyers were looking for energy saving features in the machines. However, due to the downturn, which is regarded to be temporary, a lot of potential buyers tend to hesitate in making purchase decisions.
Mr Devloo is confident in the future development of the Asian textile industry, especially for commodity textiles. Individuals in third world countries consume only 10% of the amount consumed by those in developed countries, he said.
Potential of new territories
Benninger's CEO, Heinz Michel (middle), commented that the show had good quantity of quality visitors, but after a few months of economic downturn, many of the potential buyers had adopted a wait-and-see attitude. He was at the company's booth with Tom Knauer, sales manager (left), and Guido Benz, executive sales director, of textile finishing. |
Turkey is one of the main markets in the Middle East targeted by another exhibitor Uster Technologies, which is finding opportunities in a number of growing regions that span from South Africa to Russia, covering such less developed markets as Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Uzbekistan, and so on.
These new markets are smaller in size when compared with China and India, and usually involve the local governments in certain manner when it comes to investment in high technology.
The cotton classing offices in China have ordered about 400 units of HVI 1000 M 1000, which help the users to classify their cotton and set the price, from Uster in the past three years, but the numbers of orders expected from these new markets would be much smaller, said Andreas Tanner, sales manager of Uster for these developing territories.
Andreas Tanner, sales manager (left) and Peter Egli, vice president of sales and service west, of Uster Technologies |
Stäubli offers its customers in Turkey, where it has four sales offices and one technical office, its specialized machines for carpet manufacture, in addition to its jacquard, toweling and upholstery machinery.
The carpet machines were specially adapted to the Turkish carpet-making industry, according to Helmut Lauterbach, area sales manager of Schönherr, Stäubli Group. Although sales of the machines last year was a far cry from that of 2006 and 2007, Turkey offers a huge market, he said.
Helmut Lauterbach (front) and Klaus Weinhold, area sales managers of Schönherr, Stäubli Group |
Stäubli offers five different looms for carpets. Users can switch easily from producing one type of carpet to another, and can react quickly to changes and cope with small batch orders. The end products range from area rugs, wall-to-wall carpets, to home and transport carpets.
"Turkish factories have over-capacity at the moment, but they'll come back," said Mr Lauterbach, adding the high season of making carpets is approaching.
The full report on Turkey as a country focus will be covered in the upcoming ATA Journal Aug/Sept 2009 issue.
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Copyright © Adsale Publishing Limited. Credit goes to Adsale Industry Portal when used.
We reserve the right to take legal action against any party who reprint any part of this article without acknowledgement. For enquiries, please contact the Editorial Department. |
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