Illegal Turkish Imports Threaten Morocco’s Sock Industry, Sparking Economic Crisis

The route is known. Turkish industrialists are illegally bringing in polyester sock-producing machines to Morocco through the Bosphorus Strait, the Sea of Marmara, the Mediterranean and then the Atlantic Ocean, reports Assabah. Cheap machines costing between 60,000 and 70,000 DH. Enough to crush the competition, as the same sock production machines legally imported from Italy, the world leader in the field, cost 250,000 DH.

These Turkish machines allow the production of tons of socks that are poured into the parallel market: street vendors, weekly markets, stalls in front of mosques, etc. Sold at extremely low prices, these varieties of socks are popular with consumers who do not care about the origin of the product and the materials with which it was made.

This fierce competition from clandestine units working with illegally imported Turkish machines, worries Fouad Slaoui, secretary general of the Moroccan Association of Sock Manufacturers. He estimates that the 50 sock production units operating legally in Morocco are simply at risk of immediate bankruptcy.