The 5th Ordinary General Assembly Meeting of the OSTİM Defence and Aerospace Cluster (OSSA) was held with broad participation. At the meeting, the Board of Directors' activity report, operating income and expenditure accounts, and audit committee reports were separately approved; the activities of 2019-2020 were evaluated, and the estimated budget was finalized. The General Assembly also held elections for the new Board of Directors and Audit Committee members for the upcoming term.
The General Assembly was attended by the President of the Presidency of Defence Industries, Prof. Dr. İsmail Demir; the former Deputy Group Chairman of the AK Party, Salih Kapusuz; AK Party Ankara Member of Parliament, Zeynep Yıldız; the President of the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, Gürsel Baran; the Deputy Presidents of the Presidency of Defence Industries, Dr. Celal Sami Tüfekçi and Mustafa Murat Şeker; the Head of the Industrialization Department of the Presidency of Defence Industries, Murat Çizgel; the Deputy President of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, Gazali Çiçek; the Ankara Provincial Director of Industry and Technology, Vehbi Konarılı; ASELSAN Board Member Bayram Genççan; SASAD General Secretary Hüseyin Baysak; SASAD Deputy General Secretary Yılmaz Küçükseyhan; representatives from TUSAŞ and Roketsan; and numerous representatives from the public and private sectors.
“The Presidency of Defence Industries has an important stance”
Orhan Aydın, Chairman of the OSTİM Board of Directors, who chaired the meeting, highlighted the importance of the sector for our country and the role of the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) in his opening speech.
Aydın stated that OSSA was established in OSTİM with the knowledge, support, and contributions of the SSB (Defense Industry Directorate) in the field of defense and aerospace, and under the leadership and guidance of the companies located there, adding, "The clustering philosophy is a serious model that we did not discover ourselves, but which we believe in and have brought together with our history and geography for the development of our country, our region, and our sector."
Stating that clustering is an example of the Ahi Brotherhood concept, Orhan Aydın said: “Although it is structured according to Porter's theory by Westerners, clustering actually fits perfectly with our history. It has a background of both competing within the same sector and cooperating within the same sector, and it is self-improving, developing, guiding and aligning its industrialists. Therefore, we are striving with full belief in clustering.”
OSSA is one of the first clusters we started in OSTİM. We also contribute to other clusters in our region, such as construction and industrial machinery, defense and aerospace, medical, energy, rubber, rail systems, and communication technologies. Looking back over time, we are very happy to see the benefits of our work. The Presidency of the Defense Industry, which supports the cluster, also has a very important stance. Their support, their saying "Yes, we support this too," is enough for us.”
“OSSA served as a bridge”
OSSA Chairman Mithat Ertuğ stated that the cluster continues its work without slowing down. Underlining that Turkey, which until recently imported almost everything for the defense industry, has now entered a period of maturity, Ertuğ said, “The size of the sector exceeds 3.5 billion dollars, and the employment it creates surpasses 50,000. The sector also offers very important opportunities and possibilities for SMEs. The fact that 30% of the total turnover of the defense industry, defined as defense and aerospace, is provided by the sub-industry, mostly consisting of SMEs, clearly demonstrates the importance of SMEs in this sector. OSSA was established to ensure SMEs have access to support and to make their voices heard, and it has served as a bridge.”
Mithat Ertuğ, stating that the Industrial Cooperation Days in Defense and Aerospace (ICDDA) is the most important issue for him, said: “I believe this event plays a very important role in helping our SMEs expand abroad. We successfully completed our event, which is held every two years, with flying colors this year as well. We are rightfully proud that each event is more successful than the previous one. According to the feedback I received, 2,200 people participated in our event this year. We had participation from 60 countries; 5,700 registered business meetings were held. This is something to be proud of for us. Our goal is for each event to overshadow the previous one, to facilitate more business meetings; to reach more SMEs and to increase our exports. With the support of a team that worked tirelessly for two years, OSTİM Organized Industrial Zone, and the Presidency of the Defense Industry, we overcame the obstacles in our way and achieved new successes.”
“The sector creates significant added value for Ankara”
Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO) Chairman Gürsel Baran pointed out that the defense industry is one of the most important sectors for the capital city Ankara and for our country. Baran stated, “I know that the defense industry creates great added value for Ankara. Defense industry exports have exceeded 2 billion dollars. Ankara's defense industry export figures were 748 million dollars in 2017, and 969 million dollars in 2018. Ankara not only increased its turnover by 220 million dollars in one year but also accounted for almost half of the entire country's turnover in the defense industry. As the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, I would like to express to all of you that we are at your service.”
"The work here has sparked the enthusiasm of young people"
AK Party Ankara Deputy Zeynep Yıldız stated that industrial clusters are a great opportunity for Ankara. Yıldız noted: “At the point we have reached today, we have seen that we can produce many things with our own domestic and national resources. Because what we essentially needed to convince ourselves of was this: technological production may be carried out in different ways in different parts of the world, but every nation has a different root, a different structure. In our roots, in our history, we have the Ahi tradition. Organized Industrial Zones, in terms of their operation, are actually the representatives of the Ahi tradition today. By fostering work ethics within themselves, they are engaging in activities that may open the door for us to become a major player in the world. The youth of our country also needed some excitement. And believe me, the work here has triggered that excitement.”
“Design should be more involved in the process”
The Head of the Defense Industry, Prof. Dr. İsmail Demir, emphasized that OSSA, which originated within OSTİM, is moving towards creating a model. Noting that a SAHA Cluster was also established in Istanbul based on this model, Demir stated, “We hope that these models will be replicated elsewhere in Turkey, and perhaps even expand to include Ankara. Because the defense industry continues to attract attention as a popular field. However, we must closely monitor and fulfill the necessary conditions to ensure a sustainable, accelerating, and rapidly developing defense industry.”
Demir included the following views in his speech: “At the point OSSA has reached, as we have mentioned during our visits from time to time, we especially want to emphasize that its structure, which currently focuses on high-quality metal cutting and part processing with added value, needs to change. We congratulate our companies that process metal very well, but we hope that it is time to change the dimension, and that design, materials, brainpower, and intellectual effort will increasingly be incorporated into the process.”
“The looms should now be made in our country”
The second point is that we believe the production of high-quality metalworking machines should now be done in our country. Another point is that, even in smaller sub-systems and components such as lenses, cables, and detectors, we no longer want to see a number of foreign products infiltrating our domestic product lines.
Of course, we may not have much of a problem with commonplace products, but when we talk about domestic products, we see the supply-related obstacles that we encounter in various contexts these days. In a way, we're happy about this. Because it raises awareness; no matter how hard we try, emphasizing the importance of domestic production and paying attention to sub-components, our companies somehow manage to incorporate this into their operations, but when they hit a wall, they come to us. We say, "It's good that you hit a wall; we'll solve it," and we roll up our sleeves.
We say that ASELSAN should have companies that are one-fourth or one-fifth its size. If our pyramid is pointed, meaning we have 3-5 companies approaching 1 billion dollars, but we don't have companies worth 300, 200, or 100 million dollars below them, we see this as a major deficiency and believe it should exist. We expect that the way to achieve this is for clusters like OSSA to come together, make their voices heard, and even reflect their cluster models to other parties, becoming ambitious players; bringing together various firms when necessary, bidding for systems through a collaboration model, and perhaps entering the equation as the main contractor in some areas.
As the Presidency of Defence Industries, we have and will continue to have various activities to support the sector. We will always be in touch with you.
Perhaps by bringing together specific products and companies, highlighting those that are truly satisfactory in their use, whether in the service or manufacturing sectors, and making their use mandatory for all players in the sector, we can provide opportunities for their widespread adoption, including training, consultancy, and financial and non-financial support related to the system's supply and use. We expect Turkey to move away from a corporate governance system dependent on foreign sources and, gradually pushing from the bottom up, to develop and implement its own corporate governance systems using domestic resources, transitioning to a model that is widely used and exemplified globally. We are ready to support this. Our colleagues are more or less familiar with the model. We can come together and carry out various activities to popularize its use.”
Following the speeches at the General Assembly, elections were held for the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board. As a result of the voting, the new term of OSSA consists of the following names:
Board of Directors (Full Members): Küçükpazarlı Aviation/Taha Küçükpazarlı, EMGE/Ahmet Mithat Ertuğ, Hezarfen Aviation/Emre Fidan, Dora Machinery/Bekir Sağlamyürek, Alkan Machinery/Mehmet Alkan, Öznur Machinery/Durali Ekiciler, UDEA/İbrahim Uğurlu.
Supervisory Board (Full Members): Tolga Plastics/Mehmet Hakan Atalay, Metallurgy Akdağ Heat Treatment/Harun Otacı, Arıtes/Utku Karaca
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