27th SaSaD Ordinary General Assembly Meeting held in Ankara
27th Ordinary General Assembly of the Defense and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers Association (SASAD) was held in Ankara at the Sheraton Hotel on 27th April 2016 with the participation of National Defense Minister Mr. İsmet Yılmaz.
Undersecretary of the National Defense Ministry Lieutenant General Sezai Bostancı, Undersecretary for Defense Industries Prof. İsmail Demir and deputy undersecretaries of the two undersecretaries as well as heads and directors of the relevant departments, General Director of the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation (TSKGV) (Ret.) Lieutenant General Orhan Akbaş, Chairman of the Board of Defense and Aerospace Industry Exporters’ Association Mr. Latif Aliş Aral, Secretary General of the Ankara Chamber of Industry Dr. Yavuz Cabbar and OSTİM Chairman of the Board of Directors Mr. Orhan Aydın and 117 members of SaSaD attended the meeting.
During the first session of the event, the working report of the board of directors 2015, balance and profit – loss account statement and the budget for 2016 were shared with the members. The election of the board members followed these presentations. Instead of the previous open list board member elections, it was decided this time to conduct the election over the candidates determined by the companies and the election was launched after the collection of the applications.
As the counting of the votes continued, the second session of the General Assembly started with the participation of the National Defence Minister İsmet Yılmaz and the accompanying delegation. SaSaD Chairman of the Board Mr. Nail Kurt made a speech addressing the General Assembly in this session. Nail Kurt stated that as SaSaD members and industrialists they were fully aware of the fact that they should be assuming responsibilities in line with the aims of the country and mentioned the need to make added strides in the upcoming period. Underlining the relative increase in the defense industry exports contrary to the overall decrease in the exports related to all the sectors in 2016 and continued, “There is a pleasing increase, yet it is still not sufficient for reaching the targeted figures. We have been discussing our incapacities and deficiencies in various platforms. Additionally, we have been underlining in every opportunity the need to increase the resources allocated to R&D and direct ourselves towards the utilization of common resources by taking part in international cooperation”.
Kurt stated that Middle Eastern countries existed at the top of the list of markets in which Turkey is active and noted that government’s increasing friendly relations with these countries would have positive reflections in the increase of export figures and sector growth. Kurt also underlined that in line with the changing world conjuncture, Turkish Armed Forces started to adopt a strategy towards increasing its firepower and mobility instead of intensive manpower and stressed that along with this strategy, all the shareholders needed to create a more creative and deep cooperation in respect of equipment and hardware and that SaSaD with all its members was ready to achieve this.
National Defence Minister Mr.İsmet Yılmaz made a speech on “The Current Status of the Defense and Aerospace Industry and Assessments on the Near Future”. Placing emphasis on the need to equip the staff with the most superior technological products in order to provide the public and security services in an uninterrupted manner, İsmet Yılmaz extended his gratitude to all the shareholders offering services in this area and continued, “Turkey has years of losses as a result of the conflicts in the South East of the country, in Kilis. We are facing a huge loss. We are monitoring our deficiencies and we need to work harder to overcome them. We need to do more than we have achieved today and transform the know-how into an asset by making the most of it”.
Yılmaz mentioned that Turkey aimed to become one of the 10 greatest economies with the ambitious 2023 vision and added, “It is not an easy goal at all but we are able to achieve it. We rely on the fact that we are able to cover a part of the $500 billion export target through the defense industry”.
Yılmaz noted that as a result of the conflict in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Middle East and the recent tension in the relations with Russia, the export figures of the previous year around $150 billion decline to the level of $140 billion in 2016 and stated that despite of all the aforementioned factors among all the sectors only the defense industry maintained its increase trend.
Yılmaz pointed the fact that if Turkey managed to create products capable of competing in foreign markets in price and technology aspects, it would become a preferred country. “During this period, we conducted the sale of our cutting edge technology products to many countries which we have political issues with. This is the best indicator of the present status of our country’s level in technology and competition”, continued Yılmaz.
Following the speech of the Minister of National Defense, SaSaD Director General Hüseyin Baysak made an overall assessment of the sector and told that except the civil aviation, the world defense industry has been going through a recession since 2011 and added, “The resource Turkey allocates to defense expenses is between the range of $14-16 billion. Surely this figure does not encompass the expenses of the forces which are not assigned to the NATO. When we include these expenses as well the figure increases to $18-20 billion according to the reports of SIPRI. Again, in accordance with the 2015 report issued by SIPRI, Turkey is amongst the first 6-armed countries. Taking into consideration the total sales and total exports figures of the sector achieved this year, we observe that the total export figures are proceeding in the same line with the previous year. On the other hand, there is a partial increase in the Product and Technology Development in comparison with the last year. There was a decrease in product and technology development in 2014. Here we see the increase in the support provided especially by the government”.
Upon this assessment on the sector’s 2015 performance, Frost & Sullivan analyst Mr. Brad Curran made a presentation on the ‘Future of the Defense’.
After this presentation, an award ceremony was conducted with the successful industrialists in technology development, entrepreneurship and export areas based on their 2012, 2013 and 2014 performance. The performance was evaluated by the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries based on the financial ratios and TEI was awarded the grand prize, while Alp Havacılık won the second prize in the same category and TAI was given the third prize.
Within the scope of the special awards of 2016, Ermaksan was selected as the best entrepreneur industrialist, Aselsan – Bilkent and TÜBİTAK Sage were awarded in technology development with the “Mercan” project; Aselsan won the export achievement award, conducting export activities to 63 countries and opening the South American market to Turkey by signing the first export contract in Chile; and Kale – Baykar Group won an award in successful product delivery.
Following the vote counts, with the announcement of the Original and Substitute Board Members of 2016 – 2017, and the members elected for the Supervisory and Disciplinary Board the General Assembly ended.
Following usual protocol, as it is at the beginning of each new term, the election of the new Chairman of the Board and Vice Chairmen planned to be held at the first board of directors meeting.
The Original and Substitute lists of persons elected for the Board of Directors for years 2016 and 2017 are as follows:
