Our Rising Trend: Machine Made Carpeting

Text and photographs: Yelda Baler

KALI means the dowry or the seal given to the bride. By and by it became to be pronounced as 'HALI'. Knots were formed on the warp yarns which were then reinforced with the weft yarns thus the first and foremost carpets came into being.

From Pazyryk to these days
The Pazyryk carpet, dating from the 5th century BC was discovered in the excavations in the Altai Mountains. The fact that this carpet was knotted in the Turkish knot is accepted as the first indication that carpet weaving was spread to the world by the Turks. The most enchanting examples of carpets that were brought to Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks were the ones that had geometric and stylized floriate motifs with rich colours, woven in the 13th century. Carpet weaving continued in the Ottoman period and at the end of the World War I, Turkey became the centre of world carpet trade as well as a transit market. The kilims, rugs and prayer rugs which were produced to meet the needs of nomadic life of the Turks became works of art as their beauty was reflected in the paintings of Western artists. The regression and the unproductive period which came with the economic crisis in 1929 could not be prevented. After the 1930s, as the textile industry was developing worldwide, the carpet weaving sector went through a rapid transformation with mechanization. The history of machine made carpeting goes back to 1953. After the wall-to-wall carpet fashion of 1975, the journey of machine made carpeting in the next 25 years became even more colourful.

As the efforts and the investments to meet the demands of the domestic market shifted towards the export market, Turkey took its proper place among the machine made carpet manufacturers. As new enterprises with high technology were being founded for yarn production and weaving, the rate and the quality of the products rose. The manufacturers of machine-made carpeting whose target market was that of the Middle East at the beginning are now exporting to Europe, to the Far East, to the United States and to the Middle-Asian Republics thanks to the innovations in carpet design since the 90s. The Customs Union affected our export of machine-made carpets positively. The percentage of the machine-made carpet exports in Turkey's total carpet exports increased each year reaching up to 98.5% in 2002. According to the statistics of 2002 the biggest share in our machine-made carpet exports is with Saudi Arabia; 17.3 % of a total of 64 million square meters.

Production of machine-made carpets in Gaziantep
The production of machine-made carpets shows that this production is far beyond the demands of the domestic market. Only 23% of the production is consumed by the domestic market. 80% of this production is carried out in Gaziantep. Gaziantep can be considered the main centre of this production. In this well developed industrial city of the southeast Turkey, there are 3000 weaving machines that have a yearly capacity of 100 million square meters and all these machines are ticking away no-stop. If one looks at the overwhelming amounts of the production of machine-made carpets in Istanbul and Kayseri one should not feel surprised that the carpet machine-made carpet industry is at its inevitable rise. If you are coming to Gaziantep by plane, look out of the window as the plane descends. You see yellow and| reddish brown rectangular fields of various sizes and imagine them as patchwork carpets. Some are surrounded by trees that show the boundaries of the field, in others the trees stand in the middle like a graying carpet. The ploughed earth is in stripes.

You think it is a new design... When you approach Gaziantep by air you see many many carpets...
Gaziantep that owns a historical past of 6000 years served as homeland for various civilizations. Gaziantep has always been a transit spot for commerce and civilizations. One can feel the mystic atmosphere of Mesopotamia as well as the wild joy of the Mediterranean through her streets, in her cut-stone mansions, in her markets, in her copperware, in her nuts, and in her baklava. It is a city with which has prospered very fast becoming the commercial centre of Eastern and Southeastern Turkey. One can even say Gaziantep is one of the most important cities of the Middle East with its fast growing industry.

When we look at the past of the city in early 1900, the carpets are hand woven. In the Sehrekustu quarter these black looms produced carpets for years. When machines became available, the black looms gave way to new machines and hand-woven carpets gave way to machine-made carpets. Families came together pooling their resources to buy new machines or add more machines to already existing machines. They produced and sold carpets, they sold and they produced more. They never stocked their carpets. Their most important customer was the Republics in Central Asia. These people were content because were buying cheap carpets that looked very much like the best carpets in the market. This sweet commerce that went on for years changed five years ago.

Gaziantep suddenly found herself at a very advantageous position. Qualified workers bettered their craftsmanship as well as growing in numbers. Technology of carpet making also advanced in due course. On top of this, sectoral crisis in Istanbul paved way to 100% growth in machine-made carpet making in Gaziantep. Quality of carpets inevitably rose because the target market was now Europe and the United States. The export figures from Gaziantep in the first 9 months of 2003 are as such: the first place goes to machine-made carpets worth 142 million US dollars.
Gaziantep had a scattered, small and medium sized industrial enterprises before 1980. Today, however, small and big sized enterprises are located on three Organized ndustrial Areas spreading on a total of 1200 hectares. A fourth such OIA is under construction .Alongside this, after 1 980 various small and middle sized enterprises went into practice as in Ornek Sanayi, Kucuk Sanayi Sitesi and Unaldi-Sehrekustu. Daily output of these enterprises is between 150 and 200 m2 and they work non-stop to supply the Turkish market as well as the foreign market. All the people working here have learnt their trade in Gaziantep. Formerly, three men could afford a power loom. Later, one power loom per one man was the case. Nowadays, one man can be seen to own 5 to 6 power looms.
In Small Industry Areas there can be found workshops which specialise in design making. Formerly, square paper, brushes, coloured pencils were used. Today, computers and the mouse have taken their place. Some workshops stylise the designs they buy from abroad. Custom-made designs carry both modern and classical lines. Designs cannot be abstracted from the likes and dislikes of contemporary life. In the east, dark colours and classical designs were used formerly. Nowadays, however, there is a transition to modern lines and pale colours.
Each day between 3500 and 6000 m2 carpets are produced in the technologically most advanced machines. Even in these places man comes first and foremost. This is something which warms my heart. Some of these units work directly with subcontractors for specific tasks. This, I believe is what makes Gaziantep so powerful. Those that change crells, warpers, and some others having specialities in connection to this industry are all gifts to the carpet sector in this city.
We must not avoid mentioning Merinos Industries when we discuss the carpet industry in Gaziantep. Merinos in its own unpretentious manner contributed to the growth of the industry in the city as well as the carpet industry. Merinos makes carpets for the domestic market as well as the international markets and what is more is always instrumental in raising the quality of carpet making higher.

Foreign Investors in Gaziantep
In Gaziantep, the industrial city of southeastern Turkey, there exists only one carpet factory: Covtex Feizy. The capital of this factory is 100% foreign. This is a USA based factory which has founded a branch in Romania. Due to the sectoral crisis in Istanbul, the third centre was not founded here, but in Gaziantep later on.
Until recently, USA was in first place and Belgium in the second among the carpet producers all over the world. Soon Gaziantep carpet industry caught up with Belgian carpet industry technically. As the cost of labour was much cheaper in Turkey, the equality was broken in favour of Turkey. Thus, Turkey is now the second most important carpet producer in the world. Covtex-Feizy sells its carpets embrace the wind of the south eastern Turkey, its aroma, the whispers of thousands of years of civilizations to the United States, Canada, Australia, Greece, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Chile, and Belgium and many more countries. This success is due to their work policy, their objectives and their healthy growth. Mehmet Ali Abdan, the sales manager of the firm insists that theirs is a totally different approach to design, colour, and quality. In the designs of this firm, it is quite easy to observe the ethnic characteristics of the east, its curls and colours. It did not matter whether the carpet was hand woven of machine-made. I got much pleasure from every single one of them. Mr. Abdan explains, "Our difference and mission is to give the taste of hand-woven carpets in machine-made carpets." The carpets produced in Dallas, however, where the headquarters of the firm is located, are hand-woven. The target market of the production is the external market only, but the goal of the firm for 2005 is to make Covtex-Feizy number one in Turkey. Mr. Abdan adds, "We want to grow with our customers abroad. There is no rush. The rate of growth should be in line with their demand." Gaziantep which has been accepted to the market with the intermediate goods for many years is aspiring for a trademark now. The total of exports between January and September of 2003 is 604.9 million US dollars. This figure naturally exceeds 2002 figures of 285.5 million US dollars. The export from Gaziantep for the entire 2003 is expected to reach 1 billion US dollars. Under the circumstances there is no reason to be surprised when and if the foreign investors come to Gaziantep with offers of partnership. One should also respect how the citizens of Gaziantep are trying to obtain trademarks for their products as well as their city.