Industry and Technology Minister Kacır spoke at the opening of the SAHA 2026 fair

 

Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir said Türkiye has become a key partner for Europe as the continent seeks to strengthen its defense capacity.

“Europe, which is 80% dependent on foreign sources for defense products and is moving to reinforce its defense capacity against security threats, needs Türkiye as its solution partner,” Kacir said.

He said Türkiye’s defense sector has a broad, high-tech and cost-effective product portfolio whose game-changing role has been proven in the field.

“Our sector is in a position to provide the solutions needed by the European defense ecosystem,” he said.

Kacir said Türkiye has prepared an Industrial Areas Master Plan to guide the next 30 years of Turkish industry and expand planned industrial areas from 160,000 hectares (1.6 billion square meters) to 350,000 hectares (3.5 billion square meters).

“With the new industrial areas we have designed as mega industrial zones, we will spread our defense industry production across a wider geography and create new defense industry clusters in Anatolia,” he said.