With approaching harvest season, the subject of "conta mination" of cotton is now in the agenda again.
Even though the Board of Ministers decree of October 9th, 2003 forsees the implementation of necessary measures against contamination as a legal requirement, this requirement has never been fufil-led. But this year, the President of Adana Commercial Market Regulators Mr. Fethi Coskuntuncel has declared that they will be checking the prosedu-res followed during the harvest. He said "Only fibers and fabrics made from pure cotton can be used during the harvest, transportation and warehousing of cotton. Any plastic container that is used must be of rigid material so as not to cause contamination. It is the responsibility of cotton producers to provide the workers with suitable material. Also, it is forbidden for the tradesman to deal with contaminated cotton fibers. We have established a committee to follow all concerned."

Coskuntuncel added that law forsees a fine of 11 000 YTL for all persons dealing in cotton that do not adhere to these requirements; breaking this law for three times may even mean a jail sentence.

The growth rate in the first three months of the current year exceeded market expectations and reached 6.3 % of GNP and 6.4 % of GDP.
According to the information obtained from the Turkish Statistics Authority, the largest rate of growth occured in the building sector, reaching 25.9 % in the first three months. During the same period, agriculture grew by 0.6 %, industry by 4.5% and
commerce by 7.4 % while the financial sector shrunk by 0.5 %. In monetary terms, the amount spent for consumption increased by 10 billion 789 million YTL to 78 billion 998 million YTL, while the amount spent for durable goods rose to 11 billion 303 millionYTL, an increase of 1 billion 303 million YTL, and home purchases reached 6 billion 884 million YTL, increasing by 1 billion 273 million in the first three months of the current year.

In 2005 Turkish exports reached a record-breaking 73 billion dollars. Signs of a new record for 2006 were in the air already by the beginning of July. Exports for the last 12 months exceeded 78 billion dollars.
These records, though a cause for jubilation for exporters, were unfortunately offset by the increase in imports. The imports snowballed to 115.8 billion dollars in 2005, so the record exports could not create any trade surplus but reached only 70 % of the imports. hat lies behind these numbers? The answer is imports of semi-finished goods and, more important, temporary imports.In theory, temporary imports are comprised of raw materials the exporters cannot obtain locally so have to import to fullfill orders from outside. This system works perfectly in the EU Countries and is considered an important instrument in increasing exports while making up only 3-7 % of all the exports. On the other hand, in Turkey, a very large portion of exports are made utilising temporary imports. It is calculated that temporary imports make up 50-54% of all exports.During the period 1996-005, 48 dollars worth of imported material was used for every 100 dollars of exports. During the same period, 41 500 temporary import permits were issued, most of them (almost 40%) going to textiles and garment manufacturing.

All these numbers support Mr. Halit Narin, President of Turkish Textile Employers Association (TUTSIS) when he says "Each ship docking in our port means the closing of a textile plant".

TURKEY along with most successful nations in fight against child labor problems

95 th Annual Conference of International Labor Organisation (ILO) was held in Geneva between May 31 st and June 16th. During the meetings, various problems of the world of labor and social security were discussed. "Elimination of Child Labor" was among the topics of discussion and Turkey was declared to be one of the most successful countries in this project together with Brazil and Tanzania.
According to the reports submitted to the Conference, the number of children in the work force in Turkey which numbered 974 000 in 1992 has been cut to half with successful measures.
The Minister of Labor and Social Security Mr. Mu-rat Basesgioglu declared in his speech to the Conference that, "Turkey has finally received the recognition she deserves for the progress she has achieved in the implementation of the ILO standards in the fields of child labor, job security, equality of opportunity, social security, health and safety.

"Deepening Crisis in Textile Sector and Ways Out" discussed at our 26th annual seminar

The 26th of annual seminars that have been organized by the Turkish Textile Employers Association (TUTSIS) has been held in Marmaris this year.
In the seminar titled "Deepening Crisis in Textile Sector and Ways Out", "regulating the import regime" was pointed out as an urgent action for the salvation of the textile industry. The seminar, held between May 18 and 24 at Marmaris Marti Resort Hotel, was a good opportunity to put emphasis on the textile sector in crisis.
In the opening speech, TUTSIS Secretary-General Metin Emiroglu indicated: "Imports are excessive. Turkish textile and clothing industry can no longer make exports that create added value, because of the high volume of the imports".

Representatives of the Turkish Textile Employers' Association (TUTSIS) and Turkish Textile Foundation laid the foundation of Textile Education Center (METEM) on May 25 in Cerkezkoy, Tekirdag.

Minister of Education Huseyin Celik, participating in the ceremony for laying the foundation, informed that the center will be ready for 2006-2007 school year.

At the ceremony, Celik told the Ministry made a great leap forward in education. "We should design vocational and technical education to meet the sector's needs and to train qualified employees". The government gives tremendous importance to education and we work to train intermediary employees in textile sector, he pointed out. "Today, we see the positive output of our efforts", the minister said.

TUTSIS President Halit Narin said the Association focuses on "to work" only. "If he state supports us and municipalities give their hand we can succeed. We failed to explain to the governments what the trouble is in textile sector, however, with the friends, we share the problems that the education sector faces. For the sake of the Turkish national education policy, we are on road with Mr. Minister", Narin added.