SLOVAKIA will buy two Italian military cargo planes Spartan C-27J for €34.5 million each, based on the agreement Defence Minister Martin Glváč and representatives of Alenia Aermacchi signed in Bratislava on October 29.
The first aircraft is set to be delivered in 2016 and the other a year later.
“This contract concerns the largest modernisation project in the history of the Slovak Armed Forces, if I do not include the [scrapped] controversial Mokys [mobile military communications] system,” Glváč said after signing the contract, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “It is a project that will shift our air force to a level where we would like to see it.”
According to Glváč, the ministry has managed to squeeze the price of the aircraft from around €37-42 million, offered in the competition held in 2008, to the current €34.5 million per plane. The price for the two planes will be paid in three instalments. The first one will be paid this year, with the second next year and the rest in 2016, the SITA newswire wrote.
Apart from the contract on the delivery of the cargo planes, the two sides also signed contracts on training and logistics support for the Slovak military worth €25 million, TASR wrote.
The ministry currently has only one plane in the middle-sized category at its disposal. It is AN-26 whose lifespan will expire in 2016, Chief of the General Staff of the Slovak Armed Forces Milan Maxim told the press. Purchasing the Spartans means that the country will have modern middle-sized cargo planes that will surpass the possibilities of AN-26, he added, as reported by SITA.
Source: TASR, SITA
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
