The Istanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters’ Association (IKMIB), founded in 1991, is a semi-governmental and non-profit organization with nearly 10.000 members and is one of the partners of the GCC.EU project.
IKMIB is a sub-association of the Istanbul Mineral and Metal Exporters’ Association (IMMIB) that carries out an outstanding role representing around 30.000 members who produce and/or export almost all kinds of minerals, natural stones, chemicals and chemical products, ferrous and nonferrous metals, electrical/electronics, cosmetics, jewellery and many more.
Thus, IMMIB is composed of 7 Exporters’ Associations, which are;• Istanbul Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals Exporters’ Association (IDDMIB)• Istanbul Mineral Exporters’ Association (IMIB)• Istanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters’ Association (IKMIB)• Electrical Electronics and Service Exporters’ Association (TET)• Jewellery Exporters’ Association (MIB)• Turkish Steel Exporters’ Association (ÇIB)• Services Exporters’ Association (HIB)
Since its foundation in 1991, the mission of İKMİB has been to sustain the professional ethics and cohesion of Turkish export companies in the chemicals industry, help increase export levels, diversify export products, help increase product competitiveness, defend its members’ rights and interests, and help them form strong relationships in the international arena and support their access to new markets. To that end, the Association takes active part in international organizations and continues its organizational work in Turkey. The goals are to be in close relationships with all the sub-sectors of the chemicals industry, follow new developments and innovations in the sector closely, and engage new customers from overseas. The industry’s export goal for 2023 is 50 billion dollars.
The Istanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters Association- IKMIB continues its already effective support efforts in organizing various activities to inform, support and help build cooperation among its members and support their member companies to be leaders in global markets. The Association supports organizations for national participation at international fairs for all sub-sectors of the industry (plastics, cosmetics, medicine, paint etc.), technical seminars, trade and buying missions, and R&D projects to help increase sustainable growth in the industry.
THE SYNERGY BETWEEN COMPANIES AND CLUSTERS IS EXTREMELY NECESSARY
«With the decrease of barriers to international trade in the globalization process; product, service, capital and labor circulation also gained momentum. This situation has brought the need for countries to continuously improve their competitive power. – IKMIB says – The change has been impressive for local / regional economies as well as for national economies. In this environment where distances are shortened, regions have developed as units competing on an international scale. Within this framework, the competitiveness of the regions has started to be determined not only by the performance of the enterprises, but also by their knowledge, innovation and knowledge generation capacity, advanced technology they have, cooperation between different actors, and access to new markets».
«Given today’s compelling industrial competition among SMEs and relatively larger companies, company survival is progressively becoming more challenging – they point out – For this reason, it is essential for companies to cooperate in the name of sustainable competitive advantage and regional development. In this regard, clustering is an important strategical policy tool by which firms can utilize know-how and take advantage of the network systems in given clusters as a key to the solution».
The Istanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters’ Association (IKMIB) takes active part in international organizations in order to sustain the professional ethics and cohesion of Turkish export companies in the chemicals industry, «We help increase export levels, diversify export products, help increase product competitiveness, defend its members’ rights and interests and help them form strong relationships in the international arena and support them to get into new markets since 1991».
WHAT THE COMPANIES DEMAND NOWADAYS
On the part of the member companies, questions are generally raised about their problems in exporting and to benefit from state aids. «These are questions such as what documents are required in the countries they will export to, if they want to obtain more pre-financing sources, what conditions are required to apply for state aid, follow-up of current legislation, report supports, activities to increase exports etc».
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE PROJECT GCC.EU?
«The Global Cosmetic Cluster – Europe project aims to improve the internationalization activities of companies / companies operating in the cosmetics sector towards target countries – they explain – The Turkish Cosmetics Clusters is a cluster that was formed by the initiatives of IKMIB (İstanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters Association) in order to foster innovation and prioritize the efforts and firms that have innovative aspects and collaboration potential for future business endeavors through a funded project. The cluster consists of 46 cosmetics companies located in Turkey, including the leading ones».
«The main purpose of the project is to increase the market reach of its member companies via the carrying out of specially designed initiatives aimed at boosting competitiveness. Strategic consultancy services are provided at firm level, “Trade Delegations” and “Buying Missions” are formed, companies’ participation at selected exhibitions are supported and required training is provided within this endeavour which is carried out by İKMİB Istanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters Association».
«As the Turkish Cosmetic Cluster – they conclude – we see the parallelism of the objective of the GCC.eu project activities as an opportunity for ourselves. We plan to assist and guide both the cosmetics industry and our member companies in the cosmetics industry with the experience we will get during the benchmarking missions and cooperation activities to be made to target countries during the project implementation period».