LONDON, October 14. /TASS/. European arms producers’ efforts to supply Ukraine and replenish inventories are being hampered by bottlenecks and under-investment, the Financial Times writes, citing experts.
According to Jan Pie, secretary general of Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), production levels are still short of what is required, especially following decades of under-investment in Europe’s industrial base. In order to provide adequate support to Ukraine, "we have to procure and to produce in Europe much more and much faster," he said, as cited by the newspaper.
Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at Bruegel think-tank, believes that the West needs to step up its efforts. "This is about building industrial capacities at scale and being able to produce for years at scale," he pointed out. According to the expert, in order to achieve the goal, the industry needs much longer contracts to invest.
"If we are going to raise the necessary capital and do heavy investments based on order intake we need a 10-year perspective," said Vegard Sande from the Norwegian company Nammo.
Micael Johansson, chief executive of Saab, noted that the industry "needs more long-term commitment from nations as it is taking on risk ramping up capacity without guaranteed long-term contracts."
Johansson stated earlier that the the implementation of the EU’s defense industry strategy required at least 100 bln euros.