Turkey's aims to touch $2bn mark in arms exports by 2016

21 March, 2013

During the first defence and aerospace exhibition in Turkey's Ankara it came out that the country is poised to become an important weapons exporter in the region. By the year 2016, the country is aiming for $2bn in exports. Turkey's defence industry is one of the most dynamic in Europe, focused on research and development.

Turkey is no longer satisfied with assembling weapon parts for foreign companies, now it wants to be a full-fledged partner in arms production.

“We were developing some defence industry projects in the past mostly as a part of licensing project or technology transfer project but over the last decade we tried to initiate our technology development,” Murat Amar, Under Secretary of State for defence told AFP.

With its first domestically produced drone ANKA on commercial basis Turkey is moving up in defence manufacturing. Turkey's defence industry that is largely state-owned is expanding its $14bn-a-year revenues, and creating investment opportunities through privatisation.

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is the second largest company in the country's defence sector and like most other Turkish defence contractors, TAI is also a subsidiary of the country’s Armed Forces Foundation (TSKGV).

One of the latest developments of TAI is unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) ANKA, with a 56-foot wingspan, a top speed of 75 knots per hour, and a maximum altitude of 30,000 feet.

The military testing of the Anka has been completed in January and now it is set for serial production. Egyptian government has reportedly signed an agreement with Turkey last November to buy 10 Anka drones.

Turkey exported about $1.2bn worth of defence equipment in the year 2012, which is also 35.7 per cent rise over 2011. The main export destinations were the US ($490m), United Arab Emirates ($101m), and Saudi Arabia ($99m).