Soletex Continues to Expand Its Production Line
Mehmet Efe, General Manager of Soletex Digital Printing Fabrics Manufacturer, answered our questions in the first issue of Dijital Teknik industrial advertising and digital printing technology magazine in 2023.
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How was the year 2022 for Soletex? Do you think it met your expectations?
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What were the factors that made Soletex successful? What were the factors that led you to success?
It ensures that we are minimally affected by the conjuncture and fluctuations that both the country and the world are going through. When there is a problem in one country, we can sell our products in another country or another geography.
Secondly, although we address the printing industry, there are various fields within the printing sector. While someone's business may be good in indoor, outdoor, solvent, UV, and sublimation printing, others may be bad. Since we have reached out, there are always some people who do business with us. We try to keep our business active in all circumstances by serving them
Our investments continue rapidly. Can you provide information about your latest investments?
Actually, one of the factors that made Soletex successful in the past and in the future is these investments. Soletex invests every year. We always invest our earnings back into our business. This provides us with continuous growth, capacity increase, productivity increase, and quality increase. These investments are also one of the factors that make us successful.
Our biggest and most beautiful investment this year was the weaving machine investment. We used to purchase weaving from outside before, but now we can do it in-house. This provides us with some advantages.
Especially since we produce coating products, we can produce seamless jumbo rolls of 3,000 meters or 5,000 meters, which are single-piece products or floor fabrics. This will give us speed, efficiency, and quality in production.
The biggest investment of this year was the weaving investment. We rented another new factory. Our closed area reached about 25,000 m².
We produce in two separate facilities in one factory for weaving and knitting, and dyeing, finishing, and coating. If possible, we intend to open a production facility in a European country in 2024.
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What advantages will your new investments bring to you and your customers?
If we can build another manufacturing facility in Europe, we are on our way to becoming one of the determining companies in the world.
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What are your expectations and thoughts for 2023?
Because there is an election that affects the sector. It will create a movement, whether we like it or not. Apart from that, I think that some orders from Europe or China will come to Turkey during this recession. This is true not only for us but for all sectors.
Therefore, I am not hopeless for 2023. On the contrary, I think that both our country and our business will grow further as a result of these crises. But, of course, we need to be prepared for this. We need to be able to respond to these orders and jobs when they come to Turkey.
In fact, our reason for making these investments in times of crisis is these. When everyone is taking their position and waiting, if you are investing, it means that you are making progress. Of course, is it a risk? It is. But I think that if everyone takes risks that they can bear, they can turn these crises into opportunities.
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Do you have a message for the industrial advertising sector?
The only way to do this is to be able to sell abroad. That is why I recommend all my colleagues to search for export routes abroad. Because there is a very large market with 8 billion people in the world. I think that taking a small share from this market is more important than taking a large share in Turkey.
I wish everyone a healthy, prosperous, and profitable new year.
