Czech and Swedish Defence Industries Decided to Cooperate
Defence industry plays a key role in strategic defence considerations, in Europe and globally. Without a sustainable defence industry a state or security organization loses its credibility. However, deteriorating conditions on the domestic and European defence equipment market, created by defence budget cuts together with increasing competition on the global market, has stressed defence industry to look for strategic partnerships as one of several new alternatives to sharpen its competitiveness. We can no longer rely on national budgets to sustain the times of financial austerity. Realization of economic and security consequences brought together the Czech and the Swedish defence and security industry to debate how to face new challenges and to gain from new opportunities. One of the possible solutions lies in increased international cooperation.
It also has to be stressed that this segment of industry is highly sophisticated with strong contribution of well-educated engineers, generates research and development with spill-over to civilian industry, and employs thousands of people in regions. There is a lot of Swedish defence equipment used within the Czech armed forces including supersonic jets Gripen, air defence systems and others. And the Czech soldiers many times expressed their satisfaction with this equipment. Based on this existing interdependence we can enhance industrial cooperation. There are favourable conditions for such cooperation - long lasting tradition of defence production within both nations, highly qualified labour force which is prerequisite for reliable production, strong reliance on export and some others. Therefore, it is no surprise that these two entities agreed on enhanced cooperation and acknowledged their intention by signing a Cooperation agreement.
SOFF Secretary General Jan Pie and AOBP president Jiří Hynek. (Photo by Ms Line.)
The Cooperation agreement was signed by heads of the associations on 27th November 2012 at the Swedish Embassy in Prague. For the Czech Association (AOBP) it was signed by the AOBP president Jiří Hynek, for the Swedish Association (SOFF) by the SOFF Secretary General Jan Pie. During the ceremony were present H.E. Annika Jagander, Ambassador of Sweden, Deputy Chief of General Staff MG Bohuslav Dvořák and representatives of 25 Czech and Swedish defence and security companies.
Next day a seminar was held where about 28 companies from both sides were looking for cooperative opportunities. The future will show us, whether this endeavour will materialize in concrete cooperative programs.
Mr. Jan Pie, Secretary General
Swedish Security and Defence Industry (SOFF)
Mobile: 46 70 584 75 84
Säkerhets och förvarsföretagen, SOFF
Storgatan 5 | Box 5510 | 114 85 Stockholm | Tel: 08-782 08 00 | info(@)soff.se
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