The Turkish Clothing Manufacturers’ Association (TGSD) has released its “Apparel and Textile Value Added Report 2025”, a study measuring the two industries’ contribution to the Turkish economy. As reported by Ekonomim on 19 October 2026, the report draws on data from TurkStat (TÜİK), the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye and the Social Security Institution (SGK). Its headline finding: apparel and textiles generated a net surplus of $15.8 billion in goods trade in 2025, making them the country’s largest net foreign-currency earner.
Apparel accounted for $14.1 billion of that surplus and textiles for $1.7 billion. The food industry, in second place, recorded a net surplus of $10.5 billion.
Key figures from the report
- Value added: According to TÜİK, the sector generated TRY 832.5 billion in value added in 2025, second only to food within manufacturing.
- Employment: SGK data show an average of 897,671 registered employees in 2025, making it manufacturing’s largest employer; roughly one in five registered manufacturing workers is in apparel or textiles.
- Labour share: 62% of the value added goes to wages and other personnel costs, against a manufacturing average of 49%.
- Women in the workforce: An average of 407,983 women were registered employees in 2025, equal to 45% of all women in manufacturing, rising to 55% when apparel is taken alone.
- Regional reach: As of December 2024, 73% of registered employment was outside Istanbul. The sector employs more than 1,000 people in 64 provinces and more than 10,000 in 17.
- Unit value: UN Comtrade data put the value of Turkish apparel exports at $15.95 per kilogram in 2025, compared with $1.75 for Türkiye’s goods exports overall.
- Investment: Between 2009 and 2024 the sector invested $78.2 billion in machinery, buildings and other tangible assets, 14.3% of all manufacturing investment over the period.
The scale of the contraction
The report also documents the losses of recent years. SGK records show registered employment in apparel and textiles fell by 362,879 (29.7%) between December 2022 and July 2026, while the number of workplaces with insured staff dropped by 10,624 (16.6%). The sector accounted for 64% of all registered job losses in manufacturing over the same period. The report adds that textiles, clothing and leather fell 33% on the TÜSİAD Competitiveness Index between their peak in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of 2026.
What TGSD is asking for
TGSD Chairman Toygar Narbay called for apparel and textiles to be designated a strategic sector and for industrial strategy to be published with a sector-by-sector breakdown. In his view, preserving installed capacity built with $78 billion of investment over 16 years is far cheaper than building new capacity from scratch. He also noted that without the sector’s surplus, manufacturing’s $41.3 billion trade deficit would have reached $57.1 billion.
The association proposes that priorities in access to finance, employment costs and investment incentives be set using criteria such as net foreign-currency contribution, women’s employment, regional spread and labour intensity. For brands and garment manufacturers sourcing from Türkiye, the report is a useful reference for the metrics likely to shape the coming debate on industry support.
This article was summarised and commented on by the LTS Frekans editorial team, drawing on the source article.
