Our country has been in search of a production-based development since the establishment of the Republic. At the point we have reached today, there is essentially a success. However, it seems possible that we can achieve our country’s goal of becoming a strong economy by getting rid of the middle-income trap if we improve our production ability. There are only two countries, Korea and Taiwan, that have risen from middle-income to high-income in the last 60 years. These, on the other hand, established their main themes on three sectors: machinery, electronics and software. They concentrated their education systems, technology studies, organizations, incentives completely on this.
The economic bottleneck we are in; once again showed how important production, high added value and exports are for a strong economy. The fact that a production-based growth approach is expressed both in the announced New Economy Program (YEP) and public administrators’ statements gives hope to us, the real sector actors. In addition to this, we often heard about domestic and national production and localization programs.
Undoubtedly, all products produced in our country are “Turkish Made”, but the Ministry of Industry and Technology has introduced the concept of “Domestic Goods” with the Communiqué. Accordingly, products manufactured with a domestic added value of 51 percent or more can obtain a Domestic Goods Certificate with the control and approval of the relevant chamber. Products with “Domestic Goods” certificate, on the other hand, are provided with a 15 percent price advantage over imported ones in public goods purchases, while a set of machinery and equipment used in construction works and the material must be completely domestic.
Finally, the Ministry of Commerce created the concept and logo of “Domestic Production” and made it mandatory to be included in product labels and sales documents. Thus, it launched a very positive campaign for the public to prefer domestic products. In fact, we, as the private sector, carry out studies for the promotion and preference of our domestic machines in the industry. These approaches are undoubtedly very appropriate, but in order for domestic products to be preferred, we need to manufacture products of high quality and at relevant standards in every field.
Today, the rate of domestic input in the production of our sector is around 70 percent. However, despite the fact that the ratio of exports to imports in our sector has reached 60 percent, we meet the domestic market by half with domestic products. One reason for this is that there are products that we cannot produce yet, and the other reason is that the perception of priority of domestic goods developed in the public sector has not yet been developed in the private sector.
With its multi-disciplinary structure, the machinery sector interacts with almost all of the manufacturing sectors. However, considering that there can be no manufacturing without machinery, it is the supplier of all sectors. Therefore, as our country grows, more and various machines will be needed. Our main goal is to meet this need locally and nationally.