With some 250 million pairs of shoes produced in Türkiye every year, the country ranks 10th in world footwear production, coming just after Spain and Portugal.
Around half of the shoes produced are leather, but with a domestic market of some 68 million people, only 25 or 30%, worth about US$100 million goes to export. Imported footwear clocked up sales of $160 million in 2002.
Exports to the Russian Federation and Arab countries account for a disproportionately large share of the exports and Syria, Iran and Iraq are tipped as lucrative future markets. This is due to the popularity of orthopaedic house slippers. Sales are booming in countries where consumers prefer to wear casual, carpet shoes and sandals indoors. Crisis or not, this sector has healthier sales than the black-and-brown market.
Makers like Ceyo, Gezer, Muya and Ziylan dominate the Turkish slipper market. Gezer, for example, increased its sales by 30% to 12 million pairs in 2002. They export to 45 countries and plan to add a higher-value range of formal shoes to their traditional hearth-slipper line.
Since 1964, Ceyo Ortopedik Sandalet Sanayii ve Ticaret A.S. has mixed leather, plastic and textiles for the production of hundreds of different styles of anatomic sandals.
Ms. Ebru Tulumen, Ceyo’s in-house designer and R&D specialist, told World Footwear magazine that they plan to open a second Istanbul factory in 2003 to produce a more upmarket range of leather-only shoes and sandals. This move comes at a time when leather producers are highly sensitive to synthetic makers who they believe tread with impunity on their ‘genuine leather’ market.
