Chairman of the Board of Directors of SaSaD (Defense and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers’ Association) Mr. Nail Kurt and the accompanying Board Members gave an informative briefing to the Grand National Assembly’s Defense Committee on the latest status of the sector, programs conducted at home and abroad and vision strategies for the upcoming period. Stating that as the Defense and Aerospace Industry Manufacturer’s Association, their number of members reached to 183 as of 2016, Mr. Kurt added that their members covered 99% of defense industry sales, underlining that the companies composing SaSaD should be considered as leverage with respect to the development of the Turkish Defense Industry.

Relaying detailed information on the up-to-date status of the national development of the products and ongoing indigenous programs to the commission members, Mr. Kurt stressed the necessity of focusing on the critical technologies required particularly for decreasing Turkey’s foreign dependency. Mr. Kurt presented information on the resources allocated by Turkey to the defense industry in the last five-year-period and continued, “Turkey allocated est. $ 15 billion for defense industry expenses between 2009 – 2014 years. In 2015, due to the dollar parity, a decline may emerge in this rate. When our Gross National Product is considered, the resource allocated to the defense expenses remains at the level of 1.8% – 1.9%. There is a quite important point I’d like to underline here. NATO advised its allies ‘Do not fall under 2%’ and in NATO member countries this rate is around the average level of 2.5% - 3%. But we do not think that we will be exceeding these proportional figures in the upcoming period”.