Revenues generated from the defense, aviation and space expo SAHA 2026 will be used to establish drone production and training centers across Türkiye, Haluk Bayraktar, CEO of defense firm Baykar, said ahead of the event scheduled for May 5-9 at the Istanbul Fair Center.
He said at an informational meeting on April 25 that the expo, being held for the fifth time, will host more than 1,700 companies, including 260 from abroad.
“When we held the first event in 2018, there were only 170 participating firms,” he said.
Speaking at the meeting attended by the SAHA Istanbul board of directors and defense industry leaders, Bayraktar said the 27-member SAHA Istanbul has grown into Europe’s largest industrial cluster with more than 1,300 members.
“SAHA oversaw export deals worth $6.2 billion in total in 2024, and this year we aim for $8 billion,” he said. “When we launched SAHA Istanbul, there were only 17 firms in Turkish defense in the early 2000s, but now the number of defense firms affiliated with SAHA Istanbul has reached over 1,300 — the total number of firms related to the defense industry, on the other hand, is over 3,000.”
Bayraktar said drone production and training centers will be established in all 81 provinces of Türkiye, with the largest one located in Istanbul. He said the centers will be open to the public and designed to encourage young people to train, produce, test drones and become part of the broader ecosystem.
“We’ll use the revenues from the SAHA expo to establish these centers, which will help us instantly achieve the production capacity of millions of drones nationwide at any given moment,” he said.
