Weavings with a pile face, cut at the same height or at different heights from place to place, embossed, are called “carpet”, by knotting in different ways with a different pattern thread on the warp threads, passing a few rows of weft threads between them and compressing them.
The sectoral importance of the carpet, which is traditionally defined as pile textile surfaces produced by weaving, and today by weaving or tufting (sewing threads on flat floor fabric), has resulted in it forming one of the important product groups in world trade.
The carpet trade in the world is examined in three main groups: handmade carpets, machine-made carpets and tufted carpets While handmade carpet exhibits a production, structure based on labor intense and motifs developed through historical-cultural heritage; machine-made carpet has a production structure that can be considered as capital-intense.
The difference of the machine carpet, which is produced as a result of pile tied on a thick floor, from the hand carpet is that its loops consist of pile warps in the warp direction. While knotting on the warp with a separate yarn in handmade carpets, the pile surface in machine carpets is formed by the U-shaped connection of the pile warp with the wefts.
Tufted carpet is formed by weaving tuft yarns on a pre-woven ground texture.
According to the Harmonized System classification, carpets are in Chapter 57 (there is only 1 product in the 6th GTIP in Chapter 58. The product groups included in this product definition are as follows:
MACHINE CARPET PROFILE OF TÜRKİYE
Machine-made carpet is considered as a sector that should be emphasized due to its capital-intensive nature in parallel with technical textiles. The majority of Türkiye’s machine-made carpet production is carried out by companies located in Gaziantep. Other intense production centers can be stated as Istanbul and Kayseri.
MACHINE CARPETS FOREIGN TRADE OF TÜRKİYE
Exports
Our machine-made carpet exports are among our sectors that have been increasing for many years. Machine-made carpet exports increased from 2011 to 2014. However, in 2015, it decreased by 14.7% in value compared to the previous year and amounted around 1.7 billion dollars.
In 2020, while the Covid-19 pandemic spread all over the world, the machine-made carpet sector managed to reach around 2.2. billion dollars with an increase of 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is noteworthy that machine carpet is one of the sectors that increased exports in 2020, when the effects of the Covid-19
pandemic were felt the most. By 2021, machine carpet exports increased by 21,9% compared to the previous year and reached 2.7 billion dollars.
When our machine-made carpet exports are evaluated in terms of production groups, it is observed that the most important product group is machine woven carpets with HS Code 5702.
When our machine-made carpet exports are evaluated regarding importer countries, as can be seen from the table below, our most important market is the United States of America with and amount of 1,09 billion dollars and share in Türkiye’s export of 23% in 2021.
The total share of the first 15 countries in Türkiye’s machine-made carpet exports is around 75%. When we look at Türkiye’s machine-made carpet exports on a country basis in 2021, Bulgaria draws a great attention as the country with the highest increase. In 2021, Türkiye’s machine-made exports to Bulgaria increased by 913.9% and reached a value of approximately 66 million dollars.
Imports
Türkiye’s machine-made imports have been following a fluctuating course over the years. In 2020, it decreased by 19.9% compared to the previous year and was realized at the level of 16,4 million dollars. In 2021, Türkiye’s machine-made carpet imports increased by 48,5% compared to the previous year and in value its amounted to 24 million dollars.
When analysed on a product group basis, Türkiye’s major import products are listed respectively as machine woven carpets, other carpets and floor coverings and felt carpets.
In 2021, Türkiye’s imports of machine-woven carpets increased by 51%, and realized approximately 15.6 million dollars, other carpets and floor coverings increased by 40.8% and realized approximately 6.6 million dollars, and lastly felt carpets increased by 54.5% and realized approximately 2 million dollars.
As it can be seen table below, in Türkiye’s machine-made carpet imports the top three countries placed as China (16.7%), Egypt (14.7%), India (14.5%) constitute 45.9% of our machine carpet imports.
In 2021, our machine-made carpet imports from China increased by 77.7% and exceeded 4 million dollars, from Egypt increased by 382.4% and realized approximately 3.6 million dollars, and lastly from India increased by 43.6% and realized around 3.5 million dollars.
Among the top ten countries from which Türkiye imported the highest amount of machinemade carpets in 2021, while Poland had the biggest decline with a decrease of 82.9%, the highest increase in Türkiye’s import was Saudi Arabia with an increase of 4191,9%. The top ten countries to which Türkiye imported the most machine-made carpets in 2021
accounted for 95.3% of our total machine carpet imports.
WORLD MACHINE-MADE CARPETS TRADE
World machine-made carpet imports increased by 28.7% in 2021 compared to the previous year and amounted to 8.4 billion dollars.
According to year 2021 Trademap statistics, USA, Germany, UK, Japan and France are the prominent countries in world machine-made carpet imports. It can be seen that the top 5 countries in question dominate 49.5% of the world’s machine-made carpet imports.
Türkiye is on the leader position in exports of machine-made carpets. The leading countries in world machine-made carpet exports are Türkiye, China, India, Belgium and the Netherlands. Türkiye alone is the leader in the world, holding 30.8% of the market. China, which comes right after Türkiye has a market share of 21.4%.
TÜRKİYE’S TUFTED CARPET FOREIGN TRADE
Exports
In Türkiye’s tufted carpet exports, there was an increase in value between 2013-2021 expect for the year 2020, the year Covid-19 pandemic started. In 2021, Türkiye’s tufted carpet exports increased by 29.3% compared to the previous year and reached approximately 444 million dollars.
When our export of tufted carpets is analysed on the basis of importer countries; the countries to which Türkiye exported the most are listed as UK, USA, Iraq and Libya.
Shares of these countries in our tufted carpet exports are respectively; 19.7%, 16.7%, 16.3%, 4.7%.
Imports
Türkiye’s tufted carpet imports has been fluctuating for years, and Türkiye’s imports has increased by 25% in 2021 compared to the previous year and realized around 27.7 million dollars.
When Türkiye’s tufted carpet imports are analysed on the basis of countries; the most imports are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Serbia, and shares of these countries are respectively; 35.9%, 21.3% and 12.3%. Tufted carpet imports from aforementioned countries constitute approximately 70% of Türkiye’s total sector imports.
WORLD TUFTED CARPET TRADE
World tufted carpet imports increased by 21.6% in 2021 and amounted to approximately 7.1 billion dollars. The leading importing country in 2021 is the USA, which alone accounts for 15.8 of the world’s imports. The USA is followed by the UK with a share of 12% and Germany with 7.5%.
As of 2021, 19.2% of the world tufted carpet exports were made by China, 13.5% by the Netherlands, 12.9% by Belgium, 10.2% by India and 7% by the USA. The top five countries realized 62.8% of the world’s tufted carpet exports in 2021. Türkiye is the world’s sixth largest tufted carpet supplier with a 5.9% share. Türkiye’s tufted carpet exports increased by 29.3% in 2021 compared to previous year and realized around 443 million dollars.
HANDMADE CARPET PROFILE
TÜRKİYE’S HANDMADE CARPET FOREIGN TRADE
Exports
Handmade carpet exports of Türkiye’s follow a fluctuating course and increase and decrease independently of the crisis periods. While Türkiye’s handmade carpet exports were 133 million dollars in 2013, exports have decreased continuously until 2019. Between 2011 and 2018, Türkiye’s handmade carpet exports decreased by 61%.
As can be seen from the table below, our handmade carpet exports in 2019 increased by 9.5% on value basis to 56.1 million dollars compared to 2018. In 2021, Türkiye’s our handmade carpet exports increased by 88.3% and realized around 59.2 million dollars.
When Türkiye’s handmade carpet exports are analysed on the basis of countries; the countries to which Türkiye exported are listed respectively as USA, Italy, Germany and France with shares of 52.9%, 4.4%, 3.6% and 3,3% respectively.
In 2021, exports to the USA, which is the country where Türkiye’s exports the most handmade carpets, increased by 197.7% and reached a value of approximately 31.3 million dollars. In this period, the rates of increase in Türkiye’s exports to Australia and Canada are remarkable. Among the top fifteen countries to which Türkiye export the most handmade carpets, the country with the highest decline in Türkiye’s exports in 2021 was Czekchia with a 13.6% decline and an export value of 747 thousand dollars.
Imports
The import of handmade carpets in our country has been in a continuous decline since 2013 at different rates, except for 2019. On the other hand, in 2021, the sector’s imports decreased by 5.8% compared to the previous year and amounted to 4.9 million dollars.
When our handmade carpet imports is analysed on the basis of countries; the most imports are from respectively, Pakistan, India and China, with the shares of 29.6%, 16.9%, and 9.6% respectively. The handmade carpet imports from the aforementioned countries constitute 56% of Türkiye’s carpet imports.
WORLD HANDMADE CARPET TRADE
World handmade carpet exports increased by 16.4% in 2021 and reached 1.17 billion dollars. India alone, meets 28.7% of the world’s handmade carpet exports.
World handmade carpets and rugs are generally produced and exported by India, Pakistan, Iran, Nepal, Türkiye and China. The reasons why these countries penetrate the world hand-woven carpets and rugs market:
– Own the majority of the distribution channels, warehouses and retail network in the importing countries,
– Not selling products other than their own country’s products in these distribution channels,
– Being able to offer the products to the world market at low prices, since the labor costs, which constitute the costliest input in these products, are quite low in these countries,
– It can be listed as the strong image these countries have created in western markets for their products for many years.
As of 2021, 43.2% of the world’s handmade carpets were imported by the USA, 7% by Germany and 5.9% by the United Kingdom. The three countries in question realized 56.1% of the world’s handmade carpet imports.
Published By: © Republic of Türkiye – Ministry of Trade, 2022
