Turkish ready-to-wear brands seek Moroccan suppliers

Turkish ready-to-wear stores operating in Morocco are looking for local suppliers after Morocco raised customs duty on clothes imports from Turkey.

Defacto’s Morocco country manager Hassan Avsar said the company has already started textile production in Morocco.

LC Waikiki is following suit seeking local suppliers for their stores, Medias 24 reported.

This is a direct fallout of the revision of the Moroccan-Turkish free trade deal, wherein the two countries agreed to reintroduce customs duty of 90% on 1200 industrial goods to help curb the chronic deficit of 2 billion dollars in Turkey’s favor.

Moroccan textile operators welcomed the news as a boon for an industry that has been hit hard by the free trade deal with Turkey.

Turkish clothing exports were boosted by the devaluation of the Turkish Lira making them far cheaper in the domestic market compared to Morocco-made clothes.

This has led in recent years to the loss of 19,000 jobs in the textile sector in 2014; 24,000 in 2015; 35,000 in 2016; and 44,000 in 2017.