Operating in the footwear sector, FLO has rolled up its sleeves to expand domestic production in the sector, boost exports and transform Turkey into a shoe production and export base.
Aiming to become one of the 10 global brands to emerge from Turkey by 2023, the company intends to increase the domestic production and export capacity to position Turkey as a global shoe base. In this direction, FLO Mağazacılık continues the construction of its second factory in Şanlıurfa, while pioneering the development of the Shoemakers Organized Industrial Zone in the meantime.
With the production facilities to be located in the Shoemakers Organized Industrial Zone planned to be established within the Şanlıurfa Organized Industrial Zone, as well as an additional production capacity of 50 percent to emerge with FLO's second factory to be established in the region, 20,000 jobs will be created in the long term, which will in turn contribute to the solution of the region's unemployment problem. The investments made by FLO Mağazacılık in Şanlurfa also provide a good example of the current Turkish economic model, which is based on development with domestic and national production and export. FLO Mağazacılık Board Member Mehmet Büyükekşi stated that the Turkish footwear industry took on an exemplary position in the world with the development achieved in the last 15 years. "Today, we are the seventh-largest shoe manufacturer in the world with the production of 400 million pairs. We are among the top five countries in footwear exports. We do a labor-intensive business," Büyükekşi noted.
Recalling that FLO Mağazacılık began in a small workshop in 1960, FLO Mağazacılık Chairman Mehmet Ziylan said today they continue their journey as an industry leader that manufactures 55 million pairs of shoes. "We trust our country and believe that certain problems are ephemeral. As FLO, we maintained our investments in 2018 without slowing down," Ziylan added. Elaborating further on the 2018 investments, Ziyan said that in the last three years they have achieved a turnover of TL 3.5 billion ($618 million) with a total growth of 75 percent, while in 2018, they reached a total of 557 stores with 82 new stores, 9,700 employees and 800 additional jobs. "We welcome 250 million visitors every year to our stores," he noted.
