BERLIN, May 5. /TASS/. The German military-industrial concern Rheinmetall plans to produce up to 600,000 pieces of artillery ammunition a year to be supplied to Ukraine, the company’s CEO Armin Papperger told the Handelsblatt newspaper on Friday.

Rheinmetall plans to supply Ukraine with a significant amount of artillery ammunition.

"We can produce up to 600,000 pieces of ammunition per year," Papperger stressed. With an annual production capacity of 450,000 rounds of ammunition a year, Rheinmetall is already the largest Western munitions producer.

"We can expand our production up to 600,000-700,000 pieces of artillery ammunition a year," Papperger said.

At the moment, according to the newspaper, the capabilities of the Western countries to support Kiev are limited, as they have mainly transferred their existing stocks to Ukraine. Replenishing supplies, according to the newspaper, is difficult as Western military companies have reduced their production capacity since the end of the Cold War. The European Commission is allocating 500 million euros to restore them. The same amount is to come from EU countries. A total of 1 billion euros in subsidies will be available.

If Rheinmetall receives a contract from the European Commission, it could become one of the three largest individual orders for the concern’s munitions in terms of volume.

Rheinmetall is Germany's largest military-industrial concern. Currently its market value is more than 10 billion euros. As to the number of military vehicles and ammunition produced Rheinmetall is among the three largest concerns in the West. Since the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, the company's share price has more than doubled. The company, among other things, is a supplier of military equipment to Kiev, with deliveries to Ukraine ranging from air defense systems to battle tanks and armored personnel carriers and ammunition for them and from military trucks and sensors to mobile field hospitals.