The Turkish Defence Industry Summit held December 12-13 at the Presidential Complex in Ankara was launched with the opening remarks of President Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN.

ERDOĞAN: “650 Work Packages with a Project Cost of US$ 60 Billion are Presently Being Followed in the Defence Industry Area” 

President ERDOĞAN continued: “We are investing in the future and getting prepared for it. We are determined to build an industrial eco-system based on science, research, development, design, production, services and the harmony of all service chains with each other. All efforts targeting exports beyond fulfilling our own requirements, contributing to international relations and adding value are crucial for us.”

President ERDOĞAN underlined that 650 work packages amounting to a project cost of US$ 60 billion were presently being followed in the defence industry area and 100 of these projects were directly technology development and research and development projects and added: “Our Turkish Armed Forces are incontrovertibly the backbone of our country’s security. Then again, in our times, the concept of security expanded in a way to contain various areas ranging from intelligence to healthcare, from energy to communication, from transportation to agriculture. The critical point is to activate our potential, make use of our resources in the most appropriate way and to conduct our activities based on efficiency. This is the actual reason for incorporating the Presidency of Defence Industries directly to the Presidency.”

ERDOĞAN: “UAV and AUAV, ANKA and HÜRKUŞ Aircrafts Launched to Serve Turkey’s Defence” 

Stating that the developments at sea have proven that the steps taken in this area from the 5th MILGEM vessel upgraded to the frigate class from the TCG Anadolu Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) and to the submarines were quite well-directed, President ERDOĞAN reminded the audience that the UAVs and AUAVs, ANKA and HÜRKUŞ aircraft started to serve Turkey’s defence.

Delivering information on the projects related with the national defence industry such as the ATAK helicopter, National Turkish Fighter Aircraft, KORKUT Self-Propelled Air Defence Gun System, HİSAR Air Defence Systems, KASIRGA, BORA, SOM missiles and ALTAY MBT, President ERDOĞAN said, “We are unremittingly working until Turkey is able to design, develop and manufacture all its strategic requirements in the defence industry and to export them.” 

In his speech, President ERDOĞAN repeated his directive on avoiding the import of any products or materials unless they are an emergency and continued, “Do not let us lean on anybody. You also take part in this industry. From now on, we have to manufacture these products. Shall this nation succeed in this? I rely on doing it. Then let’s do it.” 

In the last part of his speech, ERDOĞAN announced the name of the T625 Helicopter that accomplished its first hover flight on September 6, 2018 at 06:00. ERDOĞAN said, “We denominated the T625 helicopter as “GÖKBEY”. I wish GÖKBEY brings good luck to our country and our industry. I once again would like to thank those who contributed to the design and production of the helicopter.” 

Minister of National Defence Hulusi AKAR expressed that the Presidency of Defence Industries, companies of the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation, the Military Factories and shipyards under the Ministry of Defence conducted their activities successfully in harmony and added, “The completed and ongoing projects such as the FIRTINA Howitzer, ATAK Helicopter, MiLGem Corvette and the National Submarine MILDEN are now amongst the most powerful references of our Turkish Defence Industry.” Emphasizing that the MilGem Corvette, the brand, design and all intellectual and property rights of which are fully owned by the Ministry of National Defence, is exported to Pakistan, AKAR added, “The contract on the export of the MilGem corvettes to Pakistan by way of the ASFAT, is indicating the attained level of the Turkish defence industry.” 

Underlining that in order to achieve the ambition vision of the year 2023, they needed the support of the medium and small sized companies in addition to the support of the large scaled defence industry companies, AKAR continued, “The development and growth of our small and medium scaled companies and their active and supplementary role bear great importance for the industry as well as for the economy of our country.” 

President of Defence Industries Prof. İsmail DEMİR: “We plan the official visit to a Far East Country to take the final step regarding the export of the ATAK Helicopter next Monday” 

In his speech, President of Defence Industries Prof. İsmail DEMİR said: “The Turkish Defence Industry Summit is the platform with broad participation, the interactive chain launched with the Institutional Structuring, Search Conference and Common Mind Activities conducted to this end. With the help of the cooperation and communication platform we established through this summit, we will hear the views of our stakeholders. We will be designing our long-termed strategic vision with an interactive Management Philosophy as a result of a more comprehensive Defence Industry Forum which we plan to hold next year with the Global Power Vision, where all parties will be able to frankly share their opinion and where the common mind for the government will be established in the structuring of the future. Taking the final step of these activities we will be restructuring the Defence Industry. It is essential to adopt and launch an integrated defence industry strategy in the new period. In this respect, we would like to emphasize that the permanent duty of the Presidency of Defence Industries is not only the procurement but also redesigning the structure as the authority of the industry focusing on “coordination, design of the future, planning, technology and resource management”. We are revising our strategy through the perspective of Value Chain and Asset Management in a way to contain the requirements that emerged as well as the ones that may probably emerge. The Defence Industry architecture is redesigned upon the logic of blocks and columns. The verticals columns are composed of land, air, sea, space and cyber areas while the horizontal blocks are consisted of human resources, finance, technology, renewal and marketing. Within the scope of a fully national and indigenous strategy, the vertical columns will enable our growth while the horizontal blocks maintain our development. To this end, in addition to building direct contact with the Ministry of National Defence and Ministry of Internal Affairs and their affiliates such as the Turkish General Staff, Land Forces Command, Naval Forces Command, Air Forces Command, Gendarmerie General Command, National Police and Social Security Institution and our National Intelligence Organization; it is essential to be part of a comprehensive activity towards developing technology and human resources in close relation and coordination with our Ministries, TÜBİTAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) and its Institutes, various universities and research institutes, industrial clusters, trade associations and chambers of industry and non-governmental organizations for achieving this target. With this mindset, our projects some of which we found the opportunity to mention in the introduction video, are being launched. For instance, during the last week, the new phase tests of our Hisar air defence system were executed successfully; our Bora missile hit its target at the firing test with high precision, our new generation multi-functional phased array radar “ÇAFRAD” neutralized the air target with successful direction; and our unique engine was tested successfully within the scope of the hybrid fueled rocket engine development activities. In addition to exporting MILGEM and ATAK to Pakistan, as an example of our international cooperation and export activities, we plan an official visit to a Far East country next Monday in order to take the final step towards the export of ATAK. Moreover, I would like to state that there are already partnership requests for our new generation ATAK Project, MMU and HÜRJET Projects. Additionally, over 100 R&D projects in Communication, Semi Conductive Technologies, Imaging Sensing Systems and related Sensors and many other projects in high technology areas are being launched. Our activities in areas which are required to be developed without neglecting, such as quantum computing, micro electro mechanic systems, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and integrated unmanned systems and smart decision support technologies, plasma and advanced material technologies continue as well as we also closely keep up with the key technologies that stand out the upcoming years. I would especially like to state that we are aware of the importance of the activities for uniting the R&D and technology development efforts with the products and that we have been directing our activities in this direction as well. On the other hand, we have been organizing an inventory for registering all the capabilities, all persons with capacity and know-how and companies in coordination with the relevant associations. We have already mentioned our contests for building a new vision through reaching the human resources and youth and our support to NGOs. I would like to state that we will be launching a new activity named the Visionary Youth towards youth and human resources during our program for meeting up with the young people tomorrow as part of this summit.”

The Turkish Defence Industry Summit, held for the first time this year under the guidance of the Presidency of Defence Industry, was accomplished under the auspices of the Presidency of the Turkish Republic with the concepts of Global Power Turkey and Visionary Youth gathering the executive representatives of the industry, government officials and thousands of university students. 

Three panels namely 1. Defence Industry within the Chain of Entrepreneurship - Investment - Export, 2. Qualified Human Resources for the Indigenous Industry Move, 3. Technology - Innovation - Production were executed on December 12, 2018, the first day of the summit, designed based on Turkey’s Vision of Global Power. The second day of the Summit was launched with the speeches of Vice President Fuat OKTAY and Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa VARANK. Following the speeches, the participants seized the opportunity to meet with the speakers on various subjects throughout the day. The following panels were carried out on the second day of the event: 

Planning the Future: Career in Technology - Mehmet Fatih KACIR - Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Technology

Vision of Culture and Art - Prof. İskender PALA, Republic of Turkey Presidential Council of Culture and Art Policies Deputy President 

Blue Ocean Strategy - Career at the Seas - Ekber ONUK, CEO of ONUK Taşıt Sanayii

Adventure of the Indigenous Engine - Prof. Mahmut Faruk AKŞİT, TEI Director General 

Turkey Enterprise Eco System - Arda ERMUT, Republic of Turkey Presidential Investment Office Director 

Career beyond Dreams - Arif ATEŞ, Pilot operating the T625 Utility Helicopter for the first time and Gökhan VİRLAN, Pilot operating the T625 Utility Helicopter for the first time

Career in Communication - Kenan BOZGEYİK, PTT Chairman of the Executive Board and Director General

Strategic Security Force - Human Resources - Mete YARAR, International Security Strategies Expert

Energy of the Career - Mustafa YILMAZ, President of the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA)