Harvard Center for Textile & Apparel Research

B.Tan Overview of the Turkish Textile and Apparel Industry 20
The United States has quotas on textiles and apparel from Turkey. Canada also
imposes quotas on selected categories. The quota-restricted categories and the percentage
of these quotas filled in textiles and apparel are shown in Tables 18 and 19. In textiles,
cotton yarn, made-up sheets, and other cotton products have the highest quota fill rates of
the quotas with fill rates of 88%, 85%, and 83% respectively. In apparel, knitted shirts;
nightgowns and pajamas; and dressing gowns and robes have the highest quota usage rates
of the quotas with rates 98%, 93%, and 86% respectively.
The quotas are distributed according to certain regulations by the regional exporter
associations. The way these permits are distributed includes conditions regarding the past
performance of the company, i.e., the export volumes in the previous years, whether the
company violated any of the regulations in the previous years, etc., and the type of the
company, i.e., whether it is a trader or manufacturer. Once the permit is obtained, it can
be used to export, transferred (or sold) to another company, or returned to the association
for partial credit for next year’s calculation of the past performance. These regulations are
set by the associations after the quota levels are determined between Turkey and the
United States and Canada.
These exporters associations report to the Undersecreteriat of Foreign Trade in the
Prime Ministry. The fill rate information of all the categories is available at these trade
associations. For example, the largest trade association in Turkey, Istanbul Textile and
Apparel Exporters Association (ITKIB), communicates this information through its web
site (www.itkib.org.tr). Once a company gets a permit to export from an exporter
organization, that company can export directly to the United States without obtaining
another permit from US agencies.