Türkiye close to joining world’s top 10 defense exporters

Türkiye’s growing defense sector is close to breaking into the ranks of the world’s top 10 defense exporters as domestically developed platforms gain widespread international trust, the head of the Turkish Defense Industries Secretariat (SSB) said at the agency’s second anniversary event in Ankara.

Haluk Gorgun, secretary of the SSB, said the global success of Turkish defense platforms was driving demand, while the agency and affiliated companies hosted dozens of foreign delegations every week as an increasing number of countries sought to purchase Turkish defense products.

Gorgun said the sector’s global success was largely due to its human capital, noting that the average age of defense industry employees in Türkiye was 34, while some companies generating around $1 billion in revenue had an average employee age of under 30.

“Thanks to its young and skilled workforce, Türkiye is ready to meet the needs of its allies for decades to come,” he said.

Gorgun emphasized that nations survive through the capacity they build long before crises emerge and said the National Competency Initiative, a framework approved at a defense meeting chaired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2024, represented the human resources and competency dimension of the country’s national resilience strategy.

“Many new fields became decisive in ensuring national security, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to quantum technologies, and from space exploration to cybersecurity,” he said.

“We’re determined to be one of the pioneers in this great technological race, since after all, foreign dependence for critical technologies could spell a silent transfer of sovereignty.”

Gorgun said the initiative had reached around 500,000 people, bringing together seven target groups, ranging from high school students to industry executives, under a common development model comprising 11 programs.

“We reached 2,541 students over five semesters and included 7,000 vocational and technical high school students from 13 schools in 12 cities in our competency development initiatives, while implementing the Defense Industry Campus Program in eight cities with 3,000 participants,” he said.

“We conducted modules at universities, offering 288 courses to 4,991 students.”

He said career and competency meetings had also been held with a total of 111,000 people, while the Defense Career Platform brought together around 290,000 users and 339 companies.

The platform also delivered around 665 training sessions totaling more than 158,000 hours to over 73,000 users, he added.

Gorgun said Erdogan’s vision of full independence for the Turkish defense industry was “the strongest pillar” supporting the sector through strategic planning.