Minister of National Defence İsmet Yılmaz visited OSTİM Organized Industrial Zone. Yılmaz held a meeting with members of the defence industry cluster.
"Our industrialists are heroes."
• Minister of National Defense İsmet Yılmaz visited OSTİM Organized Industrial Zone. Meeting with members of the defense industry cluster, Yılmaz said, “You industrialists, who are doing very important work for the bright future of the country, are heroes. I congratulate you. There are two ways for Turkey to develop: production and savings.”
OSTİM Organized Industrial Zone continues to host prominent figures from the world of science and politics. The OSB management, which has made OSTİM a significant brand, particularly in the defense industry, through accelerated clustering efforts in recent years, recently hosted the Minister of National Defense, İsmet Yılmaz. Yılmaz was welcomed at the OSTİM administration building by OSTİM OSB President Orhan Aydın, Vice President Sıtkı Öztuna, Board Members, and industrialists who are members of the Defense Cluster.
At the meeting hosted by the OSTİM Defence and Aerospace Cluster (OSSA), OSSA member defense industry manufacturers shared their views with Yılmaz regarding the future of the sector and their own expectations.
"These people are heroes."
Minister of National Defense İsmet Yılmaz also said, “You, our industrialists, who are doing very important work for the bright future of the country, are heroes, and I wholeheartedly congratulate each and every one of you.” Stating that “There are two ways for Turkey to develop: production and savings,” Yılmaz continued:
“If you can’t produce, you will definitely fall behind, you will lose. If you can’t save, you also can’t produce. What is waste? Undeserved consumption is waste. Turkey is currently heading in that direction to some extent. Because many purchases made with credit cards fall into this category of undeserved consumption. Therefore, we need to produce more, and we need to support those who produce more. We also need to encourage saving. If Germany is so different from other countries today, it’s because it has two key criteria: production and saving. Germany has the highest savings rate in Europe, and it is also the country that produces the most in Europe. Therefore, we must do everything we can to encourage these two things in our country.”
Emphasizing that the next most important element after production is being able to sell what is produced, Yılmaz said, “We have a target for 2023; we need to be able to produce $500 billion. We need to produce in order to increase our exports. We need to be competitive in both price and quality. Therefore, we need to be able to produce $500 billion worth of goods. To be able to produce this, we need national strength. Each of you is a part of our national strength. With this awareness, hand in hand, we will work to make Turkey self-sufficient in this region and to become a solution to the problems of many countries around it. I thank you for all the work you have done for this purpose, and I congratulate all the heroes in this regard.”
OSTİM Organized Industrial Zone Chairman Orhan Aydın, in his speech, emphasized that OSTİM's most important concern is contributing to the increase of domestic production, and that they are particularly working to raise awareness for increasing the Offset application, known as "sweat contribution." Aydın stated that the Undersecretariat of Defense Industry has a leading structure in this regard and attaches great importance to the Offset issue, and that due to these sensitivities and efforts, OSTİM has become a defense industry center and has become even stronger by uniting under the OSSA cluster. Aydın said; “Our energy group is bidding to build a wind power plant, our defense cluster is bidding to build an engine, and our Construction and Industrial Machinery Cluster is bidding to build a metro. While we don't have a single company involved in these projects, we have the ability to demonstrate Turkey's strength through this group. In this sense, we are communicating to you that we are ready to undertake any task.”
OSSA Cluster Coordinator Hilal Ünal also provided information about the cluster's formation process and the work done to date. At the meeting, OSSA Vice Chairman Ali Han, who gave a speech outlining the expectations of subcontractor SMEs working for the defense industry, said, “With the support of our Undersecretariat and our main industry, we have gathered the expectations we have determined as cluster firms under 3 main headings in order to take the capabilities of our cluster firms to the next level.” Han continued his speech as follows:
“These three headings are: strategic, sustainable business and solution partnerships, R&D localization and technology transfer, and support for the development of international markets and collaborations. When we talk about strategic sustainable business and solution partnerships, we expect long-term and contract-based work transfers in projects carried out in the main industry. Currently, the projects we receive are mostly piecemeal, and we want to be able to see what lies ahead. Regarding R&D, localization, and technology transfer, we request the creation of support mechanisms that will increase the research and development capabilities of SMEs. Unfortunately, there are no grant-based supports for certain defense industry products. The issue of localizing components and subsystems procured from abroad is a topic discussed in our main industry units, and we want to actively participate in this. For the development of international markets and collaborations, we expect the capabilities of SMEs to be utilized in the best way for the international market, and support to be given to potential collaborations in this regard.”
At the end of the meeting, OSTİM President Orhan Aydın thanked Minister Yılmaz for his visit and presented him with a commemorative plaque.
