With 250 participants and 30 exhibitors, representing 121 companies and 24 countries, EDANA’s Turkish Nonwovens Symposium managed to gather the whole nonwovens supply chain from Turkey and its key trading partners in EMEA, around a range of topics and issues.

The discussions covered a variety of information, from the general economic background and trade and regulatory context, to the nonwoven markets, from their raw materials to the machinery and processes.

According to Pierre Wiertz, General Manager of EDANA, the Symposium, the second of its kind to be held in Istanbul, reinforced trading links in nonwovens between regions, thereby supporting the development of new markets for industry’s products that bring value and benefits to society in a variety of applications from personal to healthcare and filtration to transportation and construction.

Sustainable growth

“EDANA is proud of its 15 Turkish member companies, and will continue to support them as part of our Mission in favour of the sustainable growth of the whole supply chain of the nonwovens industry primarily in EMEA,” commented Jacques Prigneaux, Market Analysis and Economic Affairs Director at EDANA.

In his presentation, Jacques Prigneaux demonstrated that the production of nonwovens in Turkey grew by 20,3% between 2009 and 2014 to reach 265,000 tonnes, representing 12% of the Greater European and nearly 3% of the global output.”

Hygiene markets

The session on the hygiene markets put Sub-Saharan Africa in the spotlight as a huge potential market, but as Michel Verstraeten from Henkel noted: “In Africa nothing is impossible but everything is difficult.”  Difficult but not impossible, Africa shows an ongoing trend of attracting investments in vast sectors of the economy, EDANA reports.

Presentations of Arzu Karatekin, Hayat Kimay, and Selda Akbasli, H.B. Fuller, gave a clear picture of the players on the Turkish market and the latest technological developments. Durable nonwovens were an integral part of the agenda of the conference, too, from the automotive sector to nonwovens as filter media.

The session on machinery and processes sparked many questions from the audience, reflecting the importance of technology in producing nonwovens for niche and main stream markets.

Valuable learning experience

"The quality of the presentations, along with the organisation, was outstanding. The breaks enabled great networking opportunities, meeting old friends and, more importantly, making new contacts," commented Mike Bird, Applications Development Manager – specialities, IMERYS Carbonates, UK.

“The symposium was a valuable learning experience. I have really appreciated all presentations and activities. All presenters were knowledgeable and effective in their presentation,” said Juan Roldan, Business Development Manager - Hygienic Department, Nitto NBB, Turkey. 

“This allowed to acquire new market and technical information with the appropriate format and a good level of interactivity and even emotional interventions.”

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