President Erdoğan: Ankara has become the capital of the defense industry

 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan participated in the AK Party’s Mayoral Candidates and Candidates for Nomination Gathering Event organized by AK Party’s Ankara Branch at Altındağ Culture House.

Addressing the attendees during the meeting, President Erdoğan made remarks on the upcoming local elections scheduled for March 31.

What matters is to have the honor of serving Turkey and the Turkish people, President Erdoğan underlined, and stated that Ankara is one of the iconic cities in the Turkish politics. Pointing out that they, as AK Party, do not see Ankara as winning or losing any metropolitan municipality as is the case for Istanbul, President Erdoğan said: “That is so because Ankara is the capital.”

INVESTMENTS IN ANKARA

Underscoring that over the past 16 years, Ankara, with the TL120-billion investment made in the city, has been one of the cities that has taken a big share of the services, President Erdoğan elaborated that among these investments are 15 621 new classrooms, university dormitories for 10 501 students, 137 healthcare facilities, 32 of which he highlighted are hospitals, 95 000 residential units and an additional 534-kilometer-long divided road which he highlighted was 466 kilometers 16 years ago.

Ankara has also become the capital and heart of the defense industry over the past 16 years, President Erdoğan further stressed, adding that four of the world’s top 100 defense industry firms are located in Ankara, and that the city’s defense exports reached 873 million dollars as of the first 11 months of 2018 which he noted corresponds to almost half of Turkey’s total defense exports.