İZMİR – Anatolia News Agency
Turkey can be as significant a production base in aeronautics as it is in automotives, Turkey’s Defense Industries Undersecretary Murad Bayar said yesterday, at a press conference as the Global Industrial Cooperation conference 2012 kicked off.
Touching on the benefits of Turkey’s participation in Lockheed Martin’s F35 Joint Strike Fighter manufacturing program, he said the industry had taken nearly $8 billion business share to date.
“Turkish firms win the contracts competing with firms from nine partnering countries in the F-35 consortium. Their competitive performance is high up to the present. Labor quality, cost advantages, a particular level of professionalism in the aeronautics create opportunities for Turkish firms. We can compare it to the automotive sector for instance. Turkey can be as significant a production base [in aeronautics] as it is in automotives,” he said.
The conference is organized by ESBAŞ Industrial Park in İzmir, GOCA (Global Offset and Countertrade Association) of the U.S., ADS (Aerospace, Defence and Security Industries) of the UK and DKF (Deutsches Kompensations Forum e.V.) of Germany. It is closed to the press and ends on 23 May.
Some 400 leading defense and aeronautics firms from the U.S., Europe, the Far East are participating in the event.
Bayar said Turkey’s expectation from the event was to get international defense and aeronautics firms to know Turkey better and assess the opportunities here on a more realistic basis.
May/22/2012