An Israeli army company opened a factory near Bucharest. It will also produce for the Romanian Armed Forces

Sitting in the army with new equipment brings activity to the Romanian economy. The Israeli group Elbit System has opened a plant near Bucharest in which it will manufacture turret components for the Piranha 5 conveyors. The big contract is with the American group General Dynamics, but Elbit is a supplier of turrets. It is the fourth factory of the Israeli group in Romania, that of Magurele. He benefited from several contracts of the Romanian armed forces.

Spread over nearly one thousand square meters, the plant will serve as a production and integration center for turrets and combat stations outsourced by Elbit as part of the Army Modernization Program. Romanian, but also regional center designed to meet the demand for such systems. for other countries. As a client of the Ministry of Defense, the equipment needed to assemble the turrets of more than 200 armored Piranha 5 for which our country has paid 895 million euros will be produced here. 90% of the production will however be exported.

GABRIEL LEŞ, Minister of Defense: Nevertheless, the needs of the Department of National Defense, even if we come to this today, which is impossible, even if we meet all the needs of the Department of Defense, will not be able to maintain such an industry with the orders of the Department of National Defense. Ministry of National Defence. given.

YEHUDA VERED, CEO of Elbit Works: We will export from Romania equipment made by Romanian engineers and technicians to other customers. The quality of the population here is very high and it is not difficult at all to transfer our technology here.

The turret of the conveyor is made in Israel. The components necessary for its assembly will be manufactured in the new Magurele production unit. Some Pirahna conveyors would be equipped with a 30 mm gun. Others will have a 12.7 mm caliber mill as the main weapon.

GABRIEL LEŞ, Minister of Defense: It is important to make technology work and revive our defense industry. Of course, everything must meet the current operational requirements, we are talking about threats of all kinds and very different.

For the Pirahna 5, several turbine options were proposed by another Israeli group, Rafael or Rheinmetall, whose modular turret LANCE had received extremely favorable reviews. But it is expensive.

The General Dynamics contract was signed at the beginning of the year. This involves the acquisition of 227 Piranha 5. 36 armored carriers expected to arrive in the country by the end of the year. The top 30 comes from Switzerland and the other six from the mechanical factory in Bucharest. The remaining 197 will also be produced in Bucharest.

The new Elbit factory in Magurele will employ 150 Romanian workers, including 15 engineers. Many of them were specialists in Israel. Currently, Elbit Systems has 500 employees in our country. The company was responsible for upgrading the old MiG 21s with new avionics and upgrading Puma helicopters to the SOCAT standard.

tags:

Bucharest
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Israel
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Magurele
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turret
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armament factory
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piranha 5
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elbit systems