Turkey’s defense and aerospace sectors generated exports tipping over $2 billion in value for 2018. This marked the first time that Turkey reached or surpassed the $2 billion export milestone and marked a 17 percent year-on-year increase from the $1.685 billion in exports achieved in 2017. The surge in exports followed four years of relatively flat growth after reaching $1.648 billion in 2014.
The largest market for Turkish defense and aerospace goods was the United States at $726.7 million, followed by Germany at $226.1 million. The largest single market increase occurred in Oman, where exports rose by over 1,000 percent year-on-year to reach $153.4 million.
Turkey has made a point of targeting developing countries in the sub-Saharan, Middle East and Central and South Asian regions as fertile markets for Turkish defense products after long relying upon its NATO partners and Israel as the go-to markets for lower-end Turkish products and hardware. But the increase in defense industrial capability since a sweeping development effort was instituted in the mid-1980s has allowed Turkey to improve its product line beyond rockets, munitions and services to include corvettes and armored vehicles.
The end-goal for Turkey has always been to reduce dependence on outside sources for its own military hardware. Today Turkey’s defense industry provides up to 65% of the systems and hardware used by the armed forces according to Turkish authorities.
Dan Darling is Forecast International’s director of military and defense markets. In this role, Dan oversees a team of analysts tasked with covering everything from budgeting to weapons systems to defense electronics and military aerospace. Additionally, for over 17 years Dan has, at various times, authored the International Military Markets reports for Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
Dan's work has been cited in Defense News, Real Clear Defense, Asian Military Review, Al Jazeera, and Financial Express, among others, and he has also contributed commentary to The Diplomat, The National Interest and World Politics Review. He has been quoted in Arabian Business, the Financial Times, Flight International, The New York Times, Bloomberg and National Defense Magazine.
In addition, Dan has made guest appearances on the online radio show Midrats and on The Media Line, as well as The Red Line Podcast, plus media appearances on France 24 and World Is One News (WION).
