Turkish Aerospace eyes Malaysia as design and build hub
30 Mar 2022
The Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has identified Malaysia as a design and build hub for its aerospace products.
Recognising the Malaysian government’s policies in aerospace, TAI president and CEO Prof Temel Kotil believes the company could support Malaysia’s aerospace industry with its experiences.
“We spent 20 years building aerospace products and we want to bring our experience to Malaysia,” Kotil told reporters at the Defence Services Asia (DSA) and National Security Asia (Natsec) 2022 yesterday.
He said TAI aims to manufacture and assemble aerospace products such as avionics in the Malaysian market.
“We target to reach about 100 engineers in the Cyberjaya office, which opened in November 2021, by the end of this year,” he said.
Moreover, TAI has collaborated with Mimos Bhd and University Kuala Lumpur to establish the avionics industry in Malaysia.
On its long-term plan, Kotil said the company also wants to localise its indigenous Gökbey helicopter in the country.
Notably, he said only a few components are left to be produced in Turkey, while the rest will be manufactured here.
For its light combat aircraft (Hürjet), TAI will start delivering about 16 aircraft to the Turkish Air Force from 2025 onwards.
“We offer business models that allow any system to be integrated. We could localise Hürjet with a partnership of 50% joint company.
“Avionics is all Turkish-built by Aselsan AS but we want to design for international markets in Malaysia,” he added.
He said TAI wants to be among the top 10 largest defence companies by 2028 which can be achieved with the help of Malaysia.
“We have several reasons for coming here and the most important one is that Malaysia has a lot of intellectuals,” he added.
Separately, TAI has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Negri Sembilan’s Norfolk Southern Corp (NS Corp) for the development of NS Aerospace Valley (NSAV) and unmanned vehicle valley (UVV) in Negri Sembilan.
The collaboration will see the development of aerospace component manufacturing, maintenance, repair and overhaul as well as skilled workforce development and technology transfers.
NS Corp chairman cum the state investment, industry, entrepreneurship, education and human capital committee Datuk Dr Mohamad Rafie Abdul Malek said the collaboration in turn was envisioned to be a hub for aircraft assembly or final assembly line.
“The UVV will house the unmanned aerial vehicle, unmanned surface vehicle, unmanned underwater vehicle and unmanned ground vehicle manufacturing plant,” he said.
He is optimistic that the MoU will help NS Corp’s commitment to developing the NSAV and UVV to be one of the main aerospace unmanned vehicles in Asia.
“This will also pursue high-technology, high value-added and innovative investment from both domestic and foreign companies,” he added.
Moreover, Mohamad Rafie was of the view that products from the collaboration will also expand government efforts to spur growth in the aerospace industry in Malaysia.
Source: The Malaysian Reserve
