Novi Pazar / Belgrade / Moscow, October 16: ASSTEX representatives traveled to Moscow last week to rent offices for its fashion show room and apparel distribution center; the grand opening is expected November 1. This permanent presence in Russia’s capital is key to the association’s strategy to capture part of the annual $53 billion the country’s consumers spend on clothing; ASSTEX opens the facility with the help of a $240,000 grant from the Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency, which was facilitated by USAID's Economic Security project. This next step in Sandzak’s textile industry expansion is part of a larger, multifaceted effort to stimulate the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises from Sandzak and South Serbia. In its five years of operation, Economic Security project-supported companies have generated over $12.5 million in new sales at trade fairs alone and entered new domestic and foreign markets including those of Germany, Poland, Turkey, Russia, Belarus and the Czech Republic.
Novi Pazar / Belgrade / Moscow: Moscow, once the path to political and military influence in Russia, now holds sway as a focal point for businesses with its 11 million-plus consumers. Muscovites spend as much as $4.1 billion annually in restaurants alone, nearly half the entire budget revenues collected in Serbia. The managers and business owners of Serbia’s first fashion industry cluster ASSTEX – the umbrella organization for 16 small- and medium-size apparel and textile companies – seized the opportunity to make inroads in the country and establish themselves as prominent fashion providers in the market.
Their first taste of potential opportunities in Russia came in the fall of 2009 when they exhibited at Moscow’s world-famous fashion and apparel trade fair, CPM Moscow. Their trip was sponsored by the Economic Security project as part of its business support activities in Sandzak and South Serbia.
While meeting potential business partners and gauging their ability to compete in the Russian market, the ES-sponsored companies – Maxers, Join, Bros, Big Boys andStig – learned that clothing, footwear and accessories is a 40 billion Euro market, the second‐largest retail sector in Russia, just behind food retailing.
These Sandzak textile manufacturers also came to understand that their Russian partners were not overly interested in traveling to Serbia to inspect goods and close deals; they also were leery of dealing with smaller companies. The Sandzak firms needed a permanent local presence to successfully take on a market of that size, but the cost would be prohibitive individually. If they united, however, these small businesses would become credible partners to even the largest customers, and even the smallest among them could expect a piece of an export deal.
The textile cluster ASSTEX was born.
The need for ASSTEX was underscored a few months later as companies readied for the Dusseldorf Trade Fair in February 2010. Taking the lessons learned in Moscow, the apparel producers united under a single brand to market at the fair, “Jeans from Serbia.” The interest was strong and potential wholesalers and retailers could see the logistical benefits of ordering from a country so close to Germany as well as the obvious price and quality benefits. Still, concerns over production capacity arose.
The message was clear – Sandzak’s apparel producers had to be bigger than they were. ASSTEX was the perfect solution. The strength in numbers operating under a single umbrella provided the individual the capacity international buyers demanded. Forays into Poland and Albania demonstrate the ability of the association to successfully negotiate and deliver large, specialized orders. After opening a permanent show room in Poland and working toward a permanent Albanian presence, ASSTEX was ready to go big time.