This initiative, backed by the Ministry of Industry and Technology, aims to bolster Türkiye’s position in the global fashion market by embracing technological advancements and sustainable practices.
At the project’s culmination event, İHKİB vice-president Mustafa Paşahan remarked on the pivotal role of the apparel sector in spearheading digital and ecological innovation.
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Paşahan said: “Despite the economic challenges over the past two years, we maintain a long-term perspective. The apparel industry will remain crucial for the Turkish economy for many years. With this awareness, we are designing the infrastructure that will strengthen our position in global trade.”
The METAMORPHOSIS project, which secured a €10.4m grant from the EU, conducted a thorough analysis of the textile and apparel sectors, developing strategies for compliance with the EU Digital Single Market and establishing a roadmap for digital transformation.
It facilitated institutional capacity-building, trained 125 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) representatives in digital fashion design, and provided digital maturity assessments for 60 SMEs.
Moreover, over 100 SMEs benefited from digital transformation and social compliance consultancy services.
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By GlobalDataAccording to Paşahan, the project has also delivered 100 testing and analysis services to improve quality standards and spearheaded R&D on Turkish organic cotton.
The Digital Transformation Center (DDM), a project funded by the IHKIB and established in 2022, now functions as an evaluator in the ministry’s digital transformation support programme, aiding businesses with assessments, roadmaps, and investment planning.
Paşahan also stated that total EU grant support for various projects has reached €37m. He revealed that they have completed and publicly shared a Sustainability Action Plan for the apparel and textile sectors.
This plan serves as a roadmap for alignment with the EU Green Deal. Plans are underway to initiate a project focused on tracking and reducing carbon footprints.
Paşahan also emphasised that competing solely on price is no longer a sustainable strategy in the fashion industry.
“Therefore, we must carve out a new path through value-added production. Design, innovation, and branding are key. Indeed, we have many successful brands. Our apparel brands operate over 3,000 stores in more than 100 countries. We take pride in our brands that are market leaders in their respective countries.
“All of this is important, but we also recognize that our future role in the global fashion industry will be shaped by our twin transformation performance. We aim to create a window of opportunity for our industry through this twin transformation,” he said.
Zekeriya Coştu, Türkiye Industry and Technology Deputy Minister, highlighted the country’s long-standing engagement with IPA funds since 2007. He noted that these financial aids have facilitated projects aimed at enhancing institutions’ commercial and administrative capacities while addressing Türkiye’s priorities in its journey toward EU membership.
Coştu detailed that during the first phase of the Competitive Sectors Program—co-financed by the EU—46 projects were implemented across 43 cities with a budget totalling €500m; €400m sourced from EU funds and €100m from Türkiye’s Ministry budget.
For IPA-2, with a €260m budget for 43 new projects in 23 cities, the focus is on R&D, innovation, digital transformation, green transition, creative industries, and technology transfer.
Coştu said: “Our goal is to integrate SMEs and entrepreneurs into a more sustainable, technology-rich, efficient, creative, and competitive ecosystem. In 23 cities, we have implemented 43 projects under the IPA-2 programme, with a total budget of €260m.
“Through the digital transformation projects we support in this phase, we ensure that our leading manufacturing and export sectors keep up with the demands of the digital era. Our efforts in artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and big data aim to position Türkiye as a leader in these rapidly evolving fields.
“We believe that the METAMORPHOSIS Project, implemented by İHKİB, will provide significant benefits to SMEs in Türkiye’s apparel and textile sectors by enhancing digital transformation, ensuring compliance with international standards, and promoting eco-friendly solutions.”
Counsellor at the EU Delegation to Türkiye, Jurgis Vilcinskas, also lauded the progress made by Turkish textile and apparel industries in aligning with EU standards.
Since 2007, the EU has invested €780m in Türkiye’s industrial competitiveness and innovation through the IPA programmes.
While speaking with the media, Jurgis Vilcinskas said: “I think it’s amazing event because it gathers the industry players from textile and apparel it also brings the partners from European Union it also brings the people on the research side, those who are investing in digitalisation of the sector who are working on making industry more eco-friendly as well more sustainable so it’s a nice Forum it’s a nice platform to share the ideas and make the industry more competitive.”
When asked about his thoughts on partnership in the IPA 2 project and what outcomes are expected, he said: “From this collaboration European Union is helping to increase competitiveness of textile apparel sector already for many years and we work very closely we actually help Türkiye to build some very important clusters in the field. So for example, we helped establish Istanbul model Academy, we helped establish digital Transformation Center which will help small medium companies to go through this costly and difficult […] so we have a number of projects talking about metamorphosis project which is very much focused on digital transformation of the sector which helps actually do the audits of the companies to understand how they can improve how they can save on production and how they can build the production which is more closely linked to the consumer demands and also more efficient production wise.”
On how the European Union supporting the Turkish textile industry and the main reasons behind this support, he added: “Well there are very good reasons for this support because our markets are very closely integrated most of exports in Turkish textile and apparel sector they go to European Union more than 60% so your companies are integrated in European Supply chains. We learn from each other, we trade with each other and of course we’re interested that Türkiye’s companies adopt European environmental standards and also produce the products which sustainable which are recyclable, which are also environmentally friendly, so the partnership is really mutual and we hope that the trade volume will go even further.”
Vilcinskas further added: “In terms of overall support we so far invested TLR1.2bn in support on textile and apparel sector in particular for 2025. We plan to start a new project where the money will come from instrument for pre accession it will be roughly €7.5m and it will help the companies to companies transition to being more green more environmentally friendly.”
