Turkey’s clothing and textile industry — the most crucial branch of the country’s economy in terms of production, exports and employment — has emerged as the worst-hit industrial sector in the coronavirus pandemic, with no apparent prospects of a quick recovery.
Industrial production data, released by the Turkish Statistical Institute last week, shows that clothing and textile production in March, when the coronavirus officially reached Turkey, shrank respectively 20% and 14% from February, while the overall decline in the manufacturing industry stood at 7.5%. The downtick has apparently continued since then and the outlook reportedly remains far from promising for June.