Vlădescu: Romania"s weapons exports do not exceed 50 million Euros

The Romanian defense industry is currently struggling for survival, according to Mr. Sebastian Vlădescu, shareholder of "Lord Expert", defense consultancy company. In his opinion, the industry is almost moribund, and the process of equipping the army is stagnating:

"The economic crisis didn"t affect the defense industry in any significant way, because following the difficulties it had in the last 15-20 years, there wasn"t much left to affect".

Romania"s 100,000 men Army needs its equipment upgraded to at least the average NATO standard, and the Romanian defense industry should be capable to at least provide the maintenance for the equipment of the army, or even better, supply part of the army"s equipment.

Mr. Vlădescu said: "If we could at least begin this process, we should make it mandatory that at leas part of it happen in Romania, by means of a technology transfer. The Army needs new equipment, the premise is there, but we don"t know when the program will become operational". The defense industry can be one of the models for exiting the crisis, precisely by this process of transferring technology to Romania. Mr. Vlădescu said: "If one takes responsibility for a program for equipping the army which costs 3 billion, you could at least have 1 billion of that amount return to the country in the form of taxes levied on the economic activities which take place in Romania. If we add to that the offset program that they need to take responsibility for, we may be able to strike a balance between the costs and the advantages of equipping the army in the next ten years. Romania pays 3 billion Euros and would receive the equipment, create jobs, earn taxes and most likely, receive technology".

The only weapons Romania still produces are bullets and machine guns, said Sebastian Vlădescu. He added: "In theory we should be producing tanks, cannons and aircraft, but from what I know, tanks are no longer being produced, and concerning aircraft we occasionally modernize some IAR Şoim (Ed. note: Falcon) training aircraft. We could very well make a space shuttle, but it wouldn"t be competitive".

Arms exports are extremely low; we only export ammunition and maybe some old technology. Mr. Sebastian Vlădescu said: "I don"t think Romania"s weaponry exports exceed 50 million Euros. I think it"s fair to say they amount to just 20 million Euros".

In the last 20 years we have been exported weapons - machine guns - to the United States, as well as older weapons to Arab countries and Northern Africa.