The 33rd General Assembly Meeting of Defense and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers Association (SaSad) Was Held in Ankara

The 33rd general assembly meeting of the Defense and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers Association (SaSaD) was held at the Ankara Crowne Plaza Hotel.  The meeting started with a moment of silence and the singing of the national anthem. Osman OKYAY, Chairman of the Board of SaSaD, in his opening remarks to the general assembly, stated that with the action plan they have prepared, they envisage expanding their sphere of influence by increasing the number of members, fostering their development, and conducting activities in line with their requirements, and added, "In this framework, we aim to increase the effective use of incentives, grants, and funding resources for members."

OKYAY stated that SaSaD, which continues to grow stronger every year as the umbrella organization for Türkiye's defense and aerospace industry, supports sector representatives by connecting them with international players and added, "There are 750 platform projects in Türkiye, which is a very important figure. It is not feasible for every country across the globe to carry out 750 projects simultaneously. The industry has made significant progress.”

Prof. İsmail DEMİR, President of the Defense Industry Agency (SSB) evaluated the “Sector Performance Report” for 2022 in his message sent to the general assembly. Stating that the total revenue of the defense and aerospace industry in 2022 reached 12 billion 200 million dollars, DEMİR said, “When compared to 2021 figures, we see that there is a 20 percent increase. There has been a 12-fold surge in growth compared to 20 years ago. Similarly, when we look at the R&D spending for 2022, we observe that 2 billion 61 million dollars of R&D investments were made by our companies, which represents a 26 percent rise from the previous year. There has been a 40-fold increase in R&D investments compared to 20 years ago.”

DEMİR noted that under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN, they will keep on building the Turkish defense industry in line with the country's global power vision by continuing to strengthen the highly capable industrial infrastructure for Türkiye, supporting design and development activities, and being a pioneer in domestic and national production, and added, “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our entire ecosystem, which has contributed to the momentum of success achieved. Additionally, I’d like to say that we expect even greater success from our industry in order to achieve our objectives and best position ourselves for the future in the rapidly advancing technology era."

Afterwards, the financial statements of the association were discussed and then voting took place. Then the voting process for the election started. The 13-person SaSaD Board of Directors and the three members of the Supervisory and Disciplinary Boards were determined following the vote classification by the Assembly Council.

Accordingly, the newly formed boards are as follows:

Board Members: Osman Okyay (HUKD), Nail Kurt (FNSS), Murat İkinci (ROKETSAN), Yılmaz Güldoğan (ALP HAVACILIK), Dr. Mehmet Akif Nacar (HAVELSAN), Özgür Güleryüz (STM), Zeynep Öktem (TSSK), Prof. Dr. Haluk Görgün (ASELSAN), Selçuk Alparslan (METEKSAN SAVUNMA), Prof. Temel Kotil (TUSAŞ), İlhami Keleş (MKE), Uğur Coşkun (BİTES SAVUNMA), Mehmet Hakan Öktem (KOÇ BİLGİ VE SAVUNMA)

Supervisory Board Members: Yeşim Dodi (HAVELSAN), Mustafa Egeli (AYDIN YAZILIM), Bilal Aktaş (REPKON MAKİNA)

Disciplinary Board Members: H. Burak Sağ (FNSS), Mahmut Bölükbaş (MİLDATA), Mert Ece (NETA)