ANTALYA

Türkiye is setting higher targets for its defense and aerospace sector exports after completing the last 10 years with the world’s highest export growth rates and achieving an average export turnover per capita of $100,000.

Haluk Gorgun, president of Türkiye’s Defense Industries Secretariat (SSB), said Türkiye has become a key global player in defense and aerospace as deepening wars, proxy conflicts, and hybrid threats around the world complicate the international security architecture.

Speaking at the fifth Defense and Aerospace Industry Global Strategies Conference on Friday, Gorgun said Türkiye has emerged as a strategic defense partner guided by the vision of establishing a fully independent defense industry.

“This transformation is edging us closer to our goal of ranking among the top 10 defense exporters worldwide,” he said.

In 2025, the SSB reportedly organized a total of 485 international activities.

“We held some 401 bilateral meetings with 94 countries, 17 defense industry meetings, attended 22 global events, carried out some 17 multinational activities, and held 21 industry days, while, as SSB, we accompanied Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on seven overseas visits,” he said.

Gorgun said Türkiye’s defense export success last year contributed to the development of relations in the defense industry with NATO countries, while Turkish defense products also “shone” in eastern markets.

“We implemented a comprehensive export package comprised of many different products in the last quarter of 2025, in line with our cooperation with the Syrian Defense Ministry to meet the defense and security needs of the country, after it regained some stability following years of civil war and destruction,” he noted.

Türkiye’s defense and aerospace exports totaled $10.54 billion in 2025, up 48% year-on-year, Gorgun added.

While the share of defense and aerospace exports accounted for 3.6% of Türkiye’s total exports last year, rising from a 1.7% share in 2022, Europe was the largest recipient of Turkish defense exports in 2025.

“We exported $4.3 billion to Europe and $1.6 billion to the Middle East, while the US, the UK, and Slovakia in particular were the largest recipients of Turkish defense and aerospace exports—some 185 companies in our sector exported over $1 million, and international indexes confirmed the progress we made,” he said.

“Türkiye has become the country with the highest increase in exports worldwide over the last decade versus the previous decade, and in 2025, for the first time, we started collecting data on service exports of our sector, and we saw that we achieved $184 million in service exports last year,” he added.

Gorgun said the widening gap between exports and imports in the defense and aerospace sector not only represents Türkiye’s decreasing dependence on foreign suppliers, but leading in exports also made a positive contribution to the country’s foreign exchange trade balance.

“Some 58 Turkish provinces made defense and aerospace exports last year, while provinces with $1 million in exports rose from 21 in 2024 to 26 in 2025, and the sector signed new deals worth $17.9 billion in total, up 79% year-on-year,” he said. “The Asia–Pacific, Europe, and America are the regions standing out for exports last year, and I’m sure our exports will reach new records in coming years,” Gorgun added.

Gorgun also shared that the SSB will begin to implement a new sales model focusing on country-to-country military sales, and that the regulatory institutional infrastructure was set in place last year, and the scheme will be fully implemented this year.

The new sales model will allow the SSB to offer a wide range of cooperation frameworks to foreign customers.

“The average export turnover per capita, one of the export efficiency indicators, stood at $45,000 in 2021 for our sector, but this figure reached $100,000 in 2025,” he said. “Foreign firms with global success can reach $300,000, so we need to reach this figure.”

Last year, some Turkish defense firms already exceeded the global average of export turnover per capita, such as the ammunition manufacturer ARCA Defense.

“ARCA Defense achieved an average export of $750,000 per capita, the highest figure in our sector, for which I would like to congratulate them,” he said.

Gorgun stressed the need for close coordination between the SSB and the defense and aerospace sector in foreign business development and sales activities and added that the agency will also closely monitor and support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating with limited resources in such an expansive field as global business development.

*Writing by Emir Yildirim in Istanbul