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Turkey's support for the defense industry in recent years increased defense exports by 86 percent. While all eyes were particularly on arms exports, there had been problems in achieving the standards required for arms sales to European countries since today. Providing the necessary permit and license requirements for arms sales in Europe, Gödde Group started to offer weapons produced in Turkey to the European market.

*** This release is originally published in Turkish.
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ISTANBUL (TR) - In the last 5 years, Turkey's arms imports decreased by 48% compared to 2010-14 period, and the increase in production in the National arms industry had a significant share in this decline. According to data of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Turkey's defense industry exports increased by 86% in 2015-2019 compared to the previous 5-year period with rapidly developing domestic technology.

The majority of Turkey's arms exports were to the Middle East countries and Turkic Republics, with many permission and standards problems in arms exports, especially to European countries, which are the most competitive markets in the world. The Gödde Group, A Turkish-German joint venture, has provided permits, licenses and standards for the export of Turkish arms manufacturers to European countries. The first recipient of the weapons was the German Special Police Unit and the German Military Special Unit.

German police to use weapons produced in Turkey

Co-founder of Gödde Group Necat Çelik stated that their main goal is to prove Turkey's strength in the arms industry to Europe through the R&D team they formed by contributing to employment in Turkey, and explained that they have taken an important step. Çelik said: “Our weapons, which were produced by our Turkish engineers in high quality production facilities and successfully passed tough tests, have received order requests today in accordance with the agreement provided with the Special Unit of the German police. The move, which has been sound across the country, has led to a significant increase in both dealership demand and orders. One of the most valuable and trusted institutions in Germany, the military special unit also introduced the weapons produced in Turkey and received requests for orders. As Gödde Group, we aim to prove the strength of our country by exporting the weapons that we have proven with our innovative and robust documents to the police and military organizations of the states and private institutions.”

Target is 35 million TL export in Europe

Josef Gödde, one of the founders of Gödde Group, stated that they are on their way to gaining an important position in the European market with the export support they offer to domestic arms and ammunition manufacturers, and emphasized that they aim to achieve at least as much success in Turkey's arms exports to Europe as in the Middle East. Josef Gödde said, “Today there is an important competition between countries in the defence industry. Countries and companies that focus on R&D can have significant power in the medium and long term. However, rather than producing, it is more difficult to have a say in targeted markets, and it comes as a result of serious lobbying and good relations. At this point, the fact that we have taken over the European region distributorship duties of IMI in the past brings with it a great knowledge. As Gödde Group, we provide consultancy services to international defense industry companies and we are working to ensure that Turkey has a voice in the most difficult and competitive market in the world, such as the European market. Within the scope of the cooperation we have provided for this purpose, our goal is to increase Turkey's arms exports to several levels in Europe.”