Page 27 - ADT MAY-JUNE 2022 Online Magazine

Full the rust off their domestic defence industry after the pandemic, [ COUNTRY FOCUS TURKEY ]
it is full steam ahead for Turkey. The country’s defence and aero-
space industry sector turnover exceeded US$10 billion in 2021 and
is performing at a pre-pandemic level, according to Ismail Demir,
Throttle head of the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB).

Changed Landscape
Twenty years ago, Turkey’s defence exports totaled US$248 million,
with 62 projects being carried out with a total budget of US$5.5
Ahead billion. The number of projects has since jumped to 800 while
the project volume is US$60 billion. While the number of new
orders received by the country’s defence and aerospace industry
increased by around 40 per cent last year compared to 2020,
R&D expenditure in the sector spiked 32 per cent over the same
period to touch US$1.6 billion. In 2021, the United States, Qatar,
TURKEY LOOKS SET TO Burkina Faso, India, and Tunisia were among the top importers of
ACHIEVE THE US$4 BILLION Turkish arms.
EXPORT TARGET IT HAS SET
FOR THE YEAR “The world is following our defence industry products with interest,”
Ismail Demir, head of the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB),
said at a meeting organized by the Istanbul Chamber of Industry
Arun Sivasankaran (ISO) and the Defence and Aviation Cluster (SAHA) Istanbul, in
May this year.

From being ranked third in 1999 among the
list of countries that import the most weapons
to climbing rapidly up the list of top defence
exporters in the world; Turkey is a success
story that does not have too many parallels.
If a jump from US$0.85 billion in exports in
2010 to US$2.04 billion in 2017 is impressive,
what followed has been even more so: in 2021
alone, the Turkish defence and aviation industry
saw exports surge to US$3.2 billion. In January
this year, exports increased by 84 per cent com-
pared to the same month in 2021, to US$306.8
million. The US$4 billion export target for the
year, announced by Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, looks, if anything, conservative.
Even as many other countries struggle to get

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