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in their factory halls to shelter earthquake victims left homeless during winter tempera- tures.
Mehmet Tuncay Yıldırım, Chairman of the Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce, confirms this, adding “Businesses have activated their company kitchens to meet the urgent food aid needs in the region, distributing meals in coordination with the governor of Gaziantep and the civil protection/disaster assistance au- thority AFAD. Businesses have also provided a large part of the carpets they keep in stock to citizens temporarily housed in tents, mosques and other social facilities.”
Production has now resumed
Mehmet Tuncay Yıldırım commented: “Imme- diately after the earthquake disaster, teams of professionals commissioned by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization carried out building damage assessments for businesses operating in Gaziantep. All plants and facto- ries underwent inspection; it was found that the carpet industry is unaffected by damage.”
“Operations resumed just one or two weeks after the earthquake, as Bonte reports, “Most production plants suffered no serious dam- age, thus it was possible to resume work with- in one to two weeks of the earthquake. But it remains a big problem that many workers are still living in tents, facing the continuing prospect of further aftershocks.” To this point Caglar Kepekchi adds: “Housing containers are needed right now, because it will take a long time to rebuild the cities. I would like to take the opportunity to thank our customers, who have already donated a large number of housing containers. Roughly 150,000 such housing containers are needed however, and donations for these are still being collected.” Merinos production has been back at its pre- earthquake level since 20 February, which Kepekchi notes “is an important signal for the economy.”
Soley Özsoy of Hannover Fairs Turkey believes it is essential not to create an impression that everything has come to a standstill in Gaziant- ep: “The critical transport and logistics routes to the other hard-hit cities and towns in the hinterland are inter-connected. Everything needs to ramp up optimally to protect the re- gion’s economy.”
Jan Bonte further reports that the container port at Iskenderun was completely destroyed, and is thus not evenly partly operational at this time. Logistics are currently being han- dled via the port at Mersin, which is therefore overloaded. “Despite all the difficulties of re- cent years – Covid, a strong US dollar and now this disaster – most Turkish manufacturers remain optimistic. They are doing everything in their power to serve customers without dis- ruption and return to a reasonably ‘normal’ status quo as rapidly as possible,” Bonte says, adding, “New orders are the best way to sup- port the economy.”
Mehmet Tuncay Yıldırım also declared the car- pet industry’s strong commitment to “support- ing the recovery of the regional economy and returning to normality.”
NEWS
Ways to donate
Information on donating and joining in the aid efforts is found on the website of the German Federal Foreign Office under Humanitarian Assistance: www.auswaertiges-amt.de
www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/aussenpolitik/krisen- praevention/humanitaere-hilfe/erdbeben-tuerkei-syrien- faq/2581294#content_6
The public broadcasters ARD and ZDF have posted lists of relevant institutions and aid organisations on their websites.
www.tagesschau.de/spendenkonten/ spendenkonten-137.html
www.zdf.de/service-und-hilfe/spendenaufruf-fuer- tuerkei-und-syrien-100.html
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