Defence Turkey: Aside from the defence industry, we see that OSTIM has a different position in its contribution to the field of localization and nationalization. Can we discuss OSTIM’s contribution to clustering and industrial developments?

Orhan AYDIN: OSTIM was founded in 1967, and at that time, except for in bureaucracy, the industry was not mentioned in Ankara. After the establishment of Aselsan in 1975, network activities began in the 80s. Because the main contractor companies such as Turkish Aerospace (TUSAŞ), MKEK, FNSS were established in Ankara, OSTIM, like an Ecole, assumed an important responsibility for creating the subsidiary industry which would provide services and materials to these companies. They had very important contributions to increase the quality of small-scale companies in OSTIM. At that time, we needed suppliers for these companies to work on their projects, but the technical information and technological infrastructure were not matured enough. With KOSGEB’s initiative, consulting and test laboratories etc., an ecosystem was created in OSTIM, so small businesses in the field of Defence as well as in almost every field started to use OSTIM as a starting point. In the following years, we conducted a serious study and implemented this cluster model to increase the synergy of this existing infrastructure, not only with our executive staff but also by taking support from the advisory boards of universities. This model appears when you look at how it was done by developed countries and competitive countries. While companies compete individually, they can cooperate and collaborate at the same time, bringing their potential to a higher level. Therefore, by analyzing the potential in our region in a detailed way, we pioneered the establishment of clusters in the fields of Work and Construction Machinery, Defence & Aviation, Medical, Energy, Rubber, Rail systems and Communication Technologies in OSTIM. We have achieved very good results from these clusters. For the development of our companies, we have brought our universities, different technoparks, especially ODTÜ  Teknokent to our region and focused on the training of our companies. As the OSTIM Board of Directors and as an institution, we are making great efforts to be a pioneer, bringing innovations in many areas to our region. As we get the results of these efforts, our energy and confidence increase, and we believe more and more in the accuracy of our work. The conducted studies in the Industrial Cooperation Days in Defence and Aviation (ICDDA), the positive bilateral negotiations between the participant companies, the orders they received and the contracts they signed, showed us that it was worth the work, and this gives us great happiness.