They don’t pay high salaries to foreigners at all. In fact they lose local engineers to foreigners, especially the likes of Airbus, who poach them. Their only success stems from US and foreign unofficial embargoes and sanctions which has forced them to produce domestically. Turkey used to produce airplanes even in the 1940s which were then shut down by US allied governments.

https://istanbultarihi.ist/578-the-nuri-demirag-aircraft-fac...