Romania To Sign Armored Vehicles Deal With Germany's Rheinmetall

Romania has considered awarding a contract to Germany's Rheinmetall Defence to deliver armored personnel carriers (APC), replacing the country’s TAB vehicles.

Romania’s TAB vehicles are a locally built variant of the Soviet-designed BTR-70. The company is to team up with a Romanian manufacturer and launch a plant in Romania that will produce the APCs, DefenseNews reported Friday.

"There will be a partnership, a Romanian-German joint venture, which will allow Rheinmetall to obtain the contract from the Ministry of Defense and build an armored personnel carrier that will be first supplied to the Romanian military," Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos told local broadcaster Europa FM in an Nov. 17 interview.

The amount of the planned acquisition has not been disclosed, but the Romanian Armed Forces is planning to replace about 1,500 such vehicles in the coming years.  

The country’s Defense Ministry is seeking to conclude similar deals with foreign manufacturers for other military procurements. This includes the planned acquisition of new corvettes for the Romanian Navy.

For 2017, the Romanian government is aiming to allocate a maximum of 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to defense expenditure, the prime minister said.