November 17 (SeeNews) - Finland's Patria said on Thursday it plans to participate in a tender for supplying armoured modular vehicles (AMVs) to Bulgarian ground forces.
In case the company is awarded the contract, Patria plans to produce the AMVs in a cooperation with Bulgarian companies, the Finnish defence industry group said in a press release.
AMV is an 8×8 wheel multi-role military vehicle. Over the past 10 years, Patria has supplied more than 4,500 of the vehicles to seven countries, according to the press release.
Bulgarian radio station Darik quoted defence minister Nikolay Nenchev as saying last week the project for modernisation of Bulgarian ground forces worth 1.2 billion levs ($658.4 million/613.6 million euro) was finalised and awaited the approval of the government.
In September 2015, Bulgarian government approved a programme for the development of the defence capabilities of the armed forces which includes improvement of the mobility of ground forces units, development of naval countermine capability and the capability of the navy
to counter a naval and air adversary as well as development of aircraft self-defence systems.
Finland's Patria is is majority owned by the state and is a strategic partner of the Finnish army.
In April, Croatian diversified conglomerate Djuro Djakovic said one if its units won a 26 million euro ($29.3 million) deal to manufacture armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) of the AMV 8x8 type for Patria, to be sold on third markets.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)