Türkiye has traditionally been a textile powerhouse. Important European and local brands produced in Turkish territory for the whole world. But Europe’s so-called China is suffering the worst crisis in the last three decades: in 2025 its exports represented less than 3% of global clothing trade for the first time and, after three years of contraction, they stood at just over 14 billion euros, almost a quarter less than in 2022. At the end of 2025, one of the industry’s patrons, Abdullah Kigili, sounded the alarm: «An immense disaster awaits us. The “The state has abandoned textiles.” The problem is that the interests of the sector and the economic policies of the Government are on divergent paths. In the last four years, inflation has fluctuated between 30% and 64%, according to official figures – independent economists believe that it has become much higher – that is, the costs for employers and workers have skyrocketed. This has forced the Ministry of Labor to decree adjustments to the minimum wage, which has multiplied by five in the last four years to 28,075 liras (and is still lower than the average cost of a rental in Istanbul). Translated into euros, in this period, the minimum wage has gone from 366 to 540 euros. The Government’s economic team, appointed in 2023 to put order in the disorderly monetary policies promoted by the same Government, has imposed a disinflation program that has raised interest rates considerably, which has put an end to cheap financing for companies. And it has also supported the exchange rate of the Turkish lira to avoid importing more inflation, which has damaged the price competitiveness of export industries. The result: last year alone, more than 4,500 textile companies in Turkey closed, including giants like 3F Tekstil, which produced for Zara and Mango, and which has been unable to refinance its debts. Some two hundred Turkish companies, including large companies such as Ulusoy and LC Waikiki, have relocated their production to Egypt, where costs are lower. Another event hit the sector hard a little over a year ago: the fall of the dictatorship in Syria in December 2024 caused some of the refugees from that country to begin returning home after 14 years of civil war. Of the three million Syrian refugees who were in Türkiye a year ago, 578,000 have returned, according to the Interior Ministry. And, for the most part, those who return are young men, mostly employed by textile factories, in many cases paying them below the minimum wage. The provinces with the greatest presence of refugees and from which the greatest number of Syrians have left are Istanbul and Gaziantep, which are the largest centers of textile production in the country.
regrets
In October, Mehmet Emin Ince, president of a business organization in Gaziantep, lamented that the province’s shoe industry alone has lost 10,000 Syrian employees, that is, one in eight of its workers. And the provincial textile merchants association also complained that many garment workshops are in danger. Hasan Baran Uçaner, general secretary of the Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce, recognizes these challenges, which are added to the effects of the terrible earthquake suffered three years ago. But he relativizes the departure of companies to Egypt: «What we are hearing from those who left is that, although it has great advantages from a cost point of view, they also have problems in terms of labor and its training.» That is why it is committed to focusing on certain products – the province is a world leader in the production of machine-made carpets – and to take advantage of its situation as a gateway to the Middle East: «When Syria begins to take off, Gaziantep will play a very important role in both reconstruction and trade. The business community has great experience in regional trade and good reflexes to change destinations when the situation requires it, and companies from other places can take advantage of that if they ally with us.» You can check out other cards in this section here.
