Eleven textile industry leaders from Turkey will tour the U.S. Cotton Belt on May 7-17 as part of a COTTON USA Special Trade Mission. The event, sponsored by the National Cotton Council’s (NCC) export promotions arm, Cotton Council International (CCI), is designed to build trading ties between the U.S. cotton industry and textile industry leaders from key Turkish mills.

“These textile executives will view the advanced state of the U.S. industry and have the opportunity to meet with U.S. cotton exporters and other industry leaders,” said CCI President John D. Mitchell, a Cordova, TN, merchant. “This is an important opportunity for U.S. cotton because the individual mills on the tour consume a total of more than 570,000 bales, with U.S. imports of about 345,000 bales.

The Taxi Of Tomorrow might be built in Brooklyn! Karsan, the Turkish manufacturer in the running to build New York's next generation of taxicabs, is now upping the ante (and changed its tune) by pledging to manufacture the wheelchair-accessible vehicles in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The new pledge makes the Karsan cab the only one of the three finalists which would be built in America (it had previously said it would build them in Turkey).

"We have three strong final contenders, and we are evaluating them as we speak," is all TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg will say on the topic. But we're guessing the promise of up to 800 new manufacturing jobs in the city is something that will certainly help the company get more support from local politicians (incidentally, Karsan sent a letter of its intentions to Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz). Ford, the only American auto-maker in the running, would make its taxis in Turkey.

The Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce of the Southeast U.S. has seen Georgia’s exports to Turkey climb more than 45 percent last year to $574.6 million and imports from Georgia rise 35 percent to $228.5 million in comparison to 2009.

But Mevlut Tascan, the chamber’s executive director, isn’t satisfied. Nor is he particularly impressed that last year’s bilateral trade between the U.S. and Turkey amounted to $15 billion.

“It’s almost a joke,” he told GlobalAtlanta during a video interview. He explained that in view of the close military relations between the two countries, trade should be greater.

Since the chamber was established in Atlanta in 2007, Dr. Tascan said that it has focused primarily on developing ties with Georgia.
Source: GlobalAtlanta