The Southeast Anatolian Exporters Associations, which is located in the Turkey’s fifth biggest export city Gaziantep, has been providing service to local exporters since 1984; GAİB has been conducting its activities for the purpose of ensuring occupational ethics and solidarity between exporters, regulating their occupational activities and relationships, and helping to resolve the economical and bureaucratic problems faced by the exporters. Many activities are conducted to increase and encourage exportation, the aim is to carry the local exportation forward with briefings on various subjects, mainly training activities and seminars, and consultation meetings.
The GAİB came into existing when four different Exporters Union operating in different industries gathered under the same roof, or in other words when gathered within one General Secretariat. This region’s exportation has been gaining momentum every year and even in the face of all the hardships created by the pandemic, 2020 has seen a 4,1% raise compared to 2019, and total of 9 billion 278 million and 128 thousand of dollars’ worth of exportation to 193 countries was recorded. For Gaziantep, 2020 has seen a 6,1% raise compared to 2019, and 7 billion 932 million 652 thousand of dollars’ worth of exportation was actualized.
A philosopher says that “perfection is not obtained by doing extraordinary things, but doing regular things extraordinarily”. Indeed, most perfect inventions manifested by humanity through history are actually based on simplicity and simple inputs. For example, what keeps the Eiffel Tower from being a pile of metal or the Hagia Sophia from being a cluster of rocks and mud, or separates them from a regular building is the phenomenon of “doing regular things extraordinarily”. The notion that lies at the heart of this phenomenon is designing.
Design exists in all aspects of our lives. Principally design exists in every action we perform, in every step we take. We should not be surprised that nowadays we encounter industrial designers more frequently as the CEOs of important companies. Because in the world of today, only businesses that can survive in the long run are the ones that accurately design their products, business processes, relationships and connections, in short, every detail about their business. This being the case for businesses, on a macro-scale, industries and even countries can take firm steps forward as long as they can develop their design ecosystem.
We as the The Southeast Anatolian Textile and Raw Materials Exporters Association, wanted to contribute to the design ecosystem of our country and the textile industry, based upon these thoughts and the faith we put in the potential of our country, and we materialized the Fabric Cloth Design Competition. We believe that designing ideas of our youth will hold a torch for the future of our industry; and we will witness this process through the channel of “Fabric”.
A. Fikret KİLECİ
Southeast Anatolian Textile and Raw Materials Exporters Association Chairman
