Turkey eyes $1.5 bn carpet export by end of 2018

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey targets $1.5 billion of carpet export by the end of 2018, a regional carpet export association head said on Monday, November 5, according to Anadolu Agency.

Ahmet Kaplan, the head of Southeast Anatolia Carpet Exporters Association (GAHIB), said the United States comes at the first place as the major market for carpet export.

“By the end of the year, we will have exported one third of the $1.5 billion target to the U.S.,” Kaplan said.

Turkey has exported $350 million of carpet to the U.S. in the first nine months of the 2018, he added.

Gaziantep, a southeastern Turkish province, manufactures 30 percent of the machine-woven carpets worldwide, while it produces 90 percent of Turkish carpets, Kaplan stated.

He said Gaziantep performed $1.1 billion of carpet exports in the first nine months of 2018, adding that it targets $1.5 billion export at the end of the year.