The Turkish Employment Organization (??KUR) cannot meet the shoe sector's need for qualified personnel, Shoemakers Association (AYAD) President Alpaslan Sel?uk said on Monday.

During the summer season they need an additional 3,000 employees to work in the shoe sector, and every year we face the same problem. ??KUR cannot meet our personnel requirements, The number of schools and training programs that develop personnel for the shoe sector need to be increased,

They've already had talks with ??KUR concerning their urgent need for personnel in the shoe sector but that they haven't seen any concrete step from ??KUR to solve the problem..

Moreover, the AYAD president noted the shoe sector could help alleviate Turkey's high current account deficit (CAD) if the government supported the sector by increasing the number of schools and training courses to develop qualified personnel. Turkey imported $191 million worth of shoes in 2003, reaching $659 million by the end of 2010. We can reverse this situation only by increasing the number of national shoe brands; by supporting the branding in the sector. And it is not difficult to compete with low-cost rivals such as China and India if the government provides a specific zone somewhere in Turkey where all shoe producers can be located while receiving incentives.

According to the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), 27,000 people were working in 4,800 footwear factories at the end of 2010. The factories are mainly centralized around the provinces ?stanbul, Ankara, Konya, Gaziantep, Manisa, Denizli, ?orum and Adana. Exports for the sector edged $400 million in 2010. The biggest foreign market for Turkish footwear was Russia last year, importing $101 million worth of shoes, followed by Iraq and Saudi Arabia, respectively, with a value of $45 million and $25 million.