Bulgarian defence industry exports up 50% year-on-year
Exports by Bulgaria’s defence industry were 50 per cent higher in 2015 than in 2014, adding up to 649 million euro, Defence Minister Nikolai Nenchev said.
Going by Bulgarian Economy Ministry figures for exports, the country’s arms industry has exported about a billion euro goods in the past two years.
Nenchev, speaking at the opening of the Hemus 2016 defence, anti-terrorism and security expo in Bulgaria’s second-largest city Plovdiv, said that at state-owned arms factory VMZ Sopot, two new workshops had opened recently and 1000 new jobs had been created.
Nenchev said that he hoped that the forthcoming modernisation of the Bulgarian armed forces would include business for companies from the domestic defence industry.
Bulgarian officials, including Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, have indicated that the commission to build new patrol vessels, a deal estimated to be worth more than 400 million euro, would go to a Bulgarian company.
Deputy Economy Minister Lyuben Petrov said that Bulgarian defence industry enterprises had produced goods for markets including Afghanistan, Iraq, India, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
For the full story, please click here.
