Insight

A review and preview of the global fastener market

Named after the Roman god who is often depicted as having two faces – due to its ability to look to the future and to the past – the Janus Perspective is a unique feature that includes a wide cross section of global fastener business leaders, who have all contributed their retrospective of 2021 and thoughts on prospects and challenges for 2022.

BESIAD, The Turkish Association of fastener industrialists and businesspeople

Mustafa Tecdelioğlu, chairman of BESIAD and chairman of Çetin Cıvata

The most important and essential challenges for Turkish fastener producers in 2021 have been the tremendous and continuous rise of raw material costs and the rise of other production input costs – due to factors occurring from the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic. However, a positive was the huge diversion of supply chain sourcing traffic from Asia to Turkey due to the logistic challenges, such as increased container lead times, as well as a boom in container freight rates globally.

The collapse of the supply chain in many fields of production affected by the 3rd and 4th waves of the Covid-19 pandemic; ongoing travel restrictions – limiting networking and face-to-face contact – due to new Covid variants creating outbreaks; as well as several production breaks in various sectors served by the fastener sector, such as automotive and automotive related industries; have formed a ‘new normal’ for Turkish fastener producers and also for many companies that supply the Turkish fastener industry, and seem set to remain for 2022.

In this ‘new normal’, we have observed and faced an extraordinary increase in fastener demand levels – especially emergency demand for fasteners diverted to Turkish fastener producers due to a broken supply chain from Asia to Europe. Turkish fastener producers have stepped up to this challenge and have been successful in meeting the demand of the domestic and international fastener sourcing sectors.

Thanks to big machinery and equipment investments that Turkish fastener manufacturers have been making since as far back as 2015, there is a growing domestic and global interest, and demand, for fasteners produced in Turkey and this growing demand has created good capacities and high-quality levels at Turkish fastener manufacturers. At the end of 2021, Turkish fastener production sat in 3rd place among the European zone‘s fastener industries’ ranking, while the Turkish fastener industry is within the biggest eight fastener producer countries worldwide.

Current capacity of the Turkish fastener production industry is 1.5 million metric tonnes as of the end of 2021. The target for the Turkish fastener industry for the year 2023 is to reach a production capacity of 2 million metric tonnes, with an annual production volume in excess of 1.5 million metric tonnes.

The fastener producers in Turkey who are the member companies of BESIAD represent 88% of the total current fastener production capacity in Turkey. These member producers are first class factories that make serial supply to automotive OEMs and automotive tier 1 companies, as well as global white goods producer companies in Turkey and Europe. There are more than 50,000 workers employed in the Turkish fastener industry currently.

All members of BESIAD work in close cooperation with the Material Test and Innovation Laboratory, which was established 10 years ago with the support of the Turkish Steel Exporters Association. The laboratory carries out accredited tests and analysis to give testing services to all steel using industries within the campus of the Istanbul Technical University. This test and innovation laboratory gives strong support in fields of R&D, innovation, technology development and consultancy, specific technical education as per sectoral profession and accredited laboratory services, to many steel using industries’ companies in Turkey, as well as to Turkish fastener producer factories.

Furthermore, BESIAD has recently concluded an agreement with the Turkish Republic National Education Ministry in providing professional education to the association’s member companies from the state’s vocational high schools and academies. All these development programmes, investment programmes, as well as capacity and production growths of Turkish fastener companies, are key factors in the country’s sustainable growth – whilst conforming to globally agreed carbon footprint reduction regulations in-line with the global near zero carbon dioxide emission goals.

Through its continuous growth rate and further investments, we believe the Turkish fastener industry will become an industrial supply power and the perfect sourcing opportunity for all global fastener using industries and production sectors in the next decade and long-term.