Turkey; The Active Player of Middle East Market
The Defence & Aerospace Industry Exporters’Association (SSI) has been established in order to increase the efficiency of activities of Turkish defence industrialists regarding exportation and intensify the coordination of our companies in respect to their achievement of export targets.The coordination activities regarding exportation were being conducted by the Ministry of National Defence and the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM) until 22 October 2011when the establishment communique was announced on the Official Gazette and enacted.On the contrary to other sectors, there was no Exporters’ Association of the defence industry in Turkey.For that reason, we have come together for very critical and important requirements such as direct participation as well as guidance of companies in the process and of a support for our country to be more efficient in the "Big Game". The number of our members is increasing day-by-day. The domain as well as responsibilities of our Association have been expanding and increasing accordingly. Through SSI, the Turkish Defence Industry has succeeded a professional team play. We have already started to obtain substantial outcomes.
There has been a continuous development-progress in our sector.As of 2012, the targets have been well-defined and become clearer with the support of our government. The actions to be taken with respect to 2023 perspective were listed out at two-day Exploratory Conference held on 11-12 December 2012 at Sapanca hosted by SSI.
At the recent meeting, the critical topics for our sector in 2013 and further were once more confirmed as "R&D oriented Production; Advanced Coordination amongst Players; Supporting SMEs; Inventory based Studies; Development of Finance-Credit Models; Exportation". Our country is aimed to be amongst world’s top 6 countries in terms of exporting defence systems and platforms within 10-11 years. To this extent, we should significantly increase our export activities each year. We are currently exporting more than one-third of production. We have reached to 54% local contribution shares in meeting Turkish Armed Forces’ (TAF) requirements.
Between 2008-2010, the export volume was 600 million US$. In 2011 this amount was nearly 800 million US$ and the substantial rise was recorded in 2012 with 43% at a total amount of 1,3 billion US$.
SSI Board of Directors has set the export target of defence and aerospace industry in 2013 as 1,5 billion US$ with 25% increase . We will be working actively for the achievement of 2013 target as well as in following years.
This year, with 39% shares, USA is the country for which our sector made the highest volume of export. Amongst other countries ranked after USA were the Middle East countries. More than one-fourth of our total export is made towards Middle East market. With this respect, this market is considerably strategic and significant for us.
Currently, the largest export items are "aircraft and helicopter components and accessories", "components and accessories of turbojets and turbo propellers for sectorial vehicles", "tanks and armoured combat vehicles", "civil aviation transport aircrafts (those dead-weighted more than 15 tons)", "components and accessories of tanks and armoured combat vehicles", "missile launchers, flame throwers, grenade launchers, torpedo tubes and etc." and "guns and pistols".
In addition to the current markets that I referred above, we expect to expand the business volume with the Central Asia and Far East regions more and to include Africa in preferential markets. We can identify the Naval Platforms as the potential product group. To maintain our strength in the fields where we are good at and to manipulate the production plans as per the future requirements will be fundamental.This is the way which we have already been following.We aim to continue the acceleration we have achieved so far in Land Vehicles, Communication Systems, Electro Optic Systems and Small Arms.
In terms of figures, the target set for us in 2016 is 4 billion US$ turnover and 2 billion US$ exportation as per the SSM 2012-2016 Strategic Plan. As Defence & Aerospace Industry Exporters’ Association, we will be working actively for the achievement of these targets in the forthcoming period.
