Over the past 19 years, Turkey has made a real revolution in the domestic defense industry, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the opening of the IDEF 2021 International Defense Industry Fair, in Istanbul, Report informs referring to Anadolu Agency.
The president drew attention to the fact that over the past decades, Turkey has sharply reduced its dependence on arms imports, bringing the import substitution rate to 80 percent from the previous 20 percent.
“Ankara has relied on the defense industry to counter the problems posed by large arms manufacturers, explicit and covert embargo. If earlier Turkish exports of products from Turkey’s defense and aerospace industries didn’t reach even $250 million, today this figure has exceeded $3 billion,” stated the president.