Leather industry has played an increasingly important role in Turkish economy since the 1970s. Especially in the last 15-20 years, industry has continued to develop rapidly and a high amount of leather products have been exported by using the domestic wide raw leather as well as the imported raw material resources.
Turkish leather industry has a certain competitive power when its production, infrastructure, technology and export-oriented performance are taken into account.
However, since the domestic production of raw leather, which is the main input of the leather industry, is not sufficient and standard, the demand for raw and semi-processed leather is met through imports.
Leather industry, which meets most of its raw material needs through imports and exports the products to northern countries by turning it into high value-added products, has started to focus on registered exports as this trade gradually decreases.Today, leather processing industry is concentrated in İstanbul-Tuzla, İzmir-Menemen, Tekirdağ-Çorlu, Uşak, Bursa, Balıkesir-Gönen, Bolu-Gerede, Isparta, Hatay, Manisa-Kula.
According to the data announced by the Social Security Institution for 2019, there are 6.544 companies of all sizes and 65.257 workers are employed.
