Textile partnership across the Aegean sea

In October of 2004 the 10th International Izmir Textile and Apparel Symposium was held in Çeþme, an event designed to bring together professionals and experts from across the textile world. The symposium provides an open forum to discuss the latest developments in the industry and offers an excellent opportunity for Turkish SMEs to establish their presence. IRC-EGE decided to host a brokerage event in conjunction with the symposium and accompanied a number of SMEs to Çeþme, hoping to facilitate contacts amongst technology providers, companies, researchers and technical institutions. Following negotiations resulting from this event, IRC-EGE is pleased to announce the signing of its 2nd Transnational Technology Transfer (TTT) agreement.

Ekoten Textile Inc was formed in September 1996 and is presently located in Torbali, an industrial region of Izmir where they operate from a 17000 square meter premises. The company specialises in knitting, dyeing and finishing of fabrics and is one of Turkey’s leading textile firms. A relatively young business, Ekoten already has a production capacity of 30 tonnes a day whilst their laboratory can perform 500 colour studies in the same time period. All of their production processes and products comply with international standards. IRC-EGE was first introduced to Ekoten through a textile thematic group and soon after accompanied their CEO to a Greek venture capital event in June 2004. After building good relations between the IRC-EGE staff and Ekoten, they were invited to attend the brokerage event following the international symposium in October of 2004, where a number of bilateral meetings were arranged with textile SMEs from across the region.

At the same time a major Greek business specializing in the manufacture and supply of clothing and apparel had approached the Greek IRC HELP-FORWARD. The company exports to several European countries as well as the US and Japan, and was interested in high-tech and innovative textile style and processes. Following close collaboration with the IRC they were invited to join a group company mission to the Turkish brokerage event whilst attending the international textile symposium. After positive talks between the company and Ekoten, the two companies decided to proceed with a technical and commercial collaboration concerning the development and shipment of a test quantity of Turkish textiles. These materials were to be tailor-made to the Greek requirements for use in a pilot production of baby clothes. The required textiles would incorporate a lint-shedding enzyme in order to improve its surface properties and optical appearance whilst also using fibre reactive dyes.

Ekoten has since proceeded with the first shipment of a test quantity of textiles made to the client’s specifications and there are now hopes for a long term collaboration between the two partners. IRC-EGE is already assisting their Greek counterparts in locating a laboratory in Izmir for fabric testing on a more permanent basis. This has proved to be yet another example of the IRC’s success in developing technology partnerships and one that IRC-EGE is pleased to have assisted with.