Sectoral show report
Below: Trend space, special show
It is investing in upgrading
infrastructure and acquiring
additional production space. She
confirmed that she had received
“some fantastic business
enquiries” at the show.
Tan said her company had
been talking to a recycling-
specialised company in
Johor, a Malaysian state on
the borders of Singapore,
for recycling materials from
old garments. “We plan to
recycle yarn. We have received
enquiries from the US, Canada,
Belgium, Denmark, India,
Brazil, Columbia and Germany,
among other countries. Possibly
because of the US-China trade
war, we discerned interest
among US buyers for our
products because these buyers
want to diversify their source
of purchase and turn to other
Asian suppliers, including
Malaysia,” she added.
Pinar Tasdelen-Engin is
Chairperson of UTIB, the
Turkish textile association
with some 1,200 member
companies in Turkey’s textile
heartland Bursa. She said the
export volume of the home
textile member companies in
Below: Green Tour with Max
Gilgenmann, photo by Messe
Frankfurt / Jean-Luc Valentin
w w w.exhibitionworld.co.uk
at Hemitextil, photo by Messe
Frankfurt Gmb / Pietro Sutera
her association amounted to
US$1.2bn in 2019. Turkey’s total
export of fabrics was about
$8bn in 2019, showing a 5%
decline over 2018.
“Some 55% of our exports
go to the EU, but the US is a
big and growing market for
us. We export to more than
160 countries,” Tasdelen-
Engin said. Turkey, which is
Europe’s biggest producer of
synthetic materials, is also
adapting to the sustainability
requirements of the textile
trade. “The Turkish government
has taken environmental
protection initiatives,” she said,
emphasising that recycled
material was not “inferior
material”.
M. Atilla Bulut, General
Coordinator TETSIAD, Turkey’s
Istanbul-based home textile
association, which has 1,000
member companies, said
although show visitors to the
Turkish exhibitors at Heimtextil
2020 had been a little lower
than last year, visitors had
been “good quality”. “We have
faced market losses in our
neighbourhood - Syria, Iran
and Iraq were once our biggest
markets . We are concentrating
now on the European markets,
particularly Germany and the
UK and encouraged by the
response from US buyers. Russia
is another potential market for
us,” Bulut explained.
Olaf Schmidt, Vice-President
(textiles and textile technologies)
of Messe Frankfurt, told EW
that the Messe had organised a
special design show segment,
‘Trend Space’ in Hall 3, where
sustainability was “not only
spoken about but also acted
upon”.
Schmidt said sustainability
was becoming an overall
industrial orientation, and more
and more industries would be
constrained to make changes
to embrace it. “We already see
recycled yarn produced from
recycled PET bottles,” he said.
Water conservation would be
key for the textile industry’s
survival; China, he pointed out,
was making a lot of investments
to launch water-saving process.
Aside from issues
of sustainability and
environmental protection,
the labour-intensive textile
industry is preparing for next-
generation manufacturing,
resorting to digitalisation,
robotics and automation. A
special show segment called
“textile technologies” showcased
technological innovations,
including the Demsan Tekstil
Makine and Tunca Teknik from
Turkey, as well as state-of-the-art
sewing machines from the US.
Messe Frankfurt also signed
an agreement at the show with
Colombia’s Inexmoda company
to organise a regional Heimtextil
show in Colombia for the Latin
American markets, starting April
2021. Schmidt said that this new
addition in Messe Frankfurt’s
tradeshow portfolio offered
“great opportunities” for the
region’s textile business.
Above: Olaf Schmidt,
Vice-President (textiles and
textile technologies) of Messe
Frankfurt, photo by Messe
Frankfurt / Pietro Sutera
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