Iran's textile association says clothing and home-textile sales trail last year, warns of plant closures

Shojaeddin Emami Raouf, secretary of the Iran Textile Industries Association, told Mehr News Agency on Wednesday 29 July 2026 that conditions in the clothing market are poor and that sales across apparel, bedding, carpeting and machine-made rugs are running below last year's levels.

Producers, he said, are sourcing raw materials with difficulty and at higher prices and are operating at reduced capacity, while household purchasing power and consumption have both fallen. He warned that without effective support for manufacturing, some textile production units are likely to shut down.

Emami Raouf added that the industry effectively lost the Nowruz season last year, when the twelve-day war disrupted the end-of-year market, and that the effect still lingers. Clothing and home textiles are among the goods whose purchase depends closely on household income and on a sense of economic security.