Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Polish arms manufacturer pursues $25 mn. Iraqi training contract
Contracts
(Financial Times) - Poland’s Bumar arms manufacturer is scrambling aboard the latest trend in the industry, branching out from supplying bullets and tanks to getting involved in services – in this case training Iraqi special forces troops in Poland. The company is also confident of winning a contract to send Polish teams to Iraq to train Iraqi soldiers in the use of Bumar’s Dzik armoured vehicles, says Waldemar Skowron, the company’s acting chief executive.
Slawomir Kulakowski, head of the Polish Chamber of Armaments Producers, says Bumar is following the example of other prominent military services companies such as Blackwater of the US. This should be an area of growing importance for Bumar. The $25m Iraqi service contract is part of a larger series of deals to supply the beleaguered Baghdad government with as much as $400m of equipment, says Mr Skowron.
“Iraq needs weapons quickly. Once the government decides it wants something, it wants it right away,” says Mr Skowron, who was in Iraq with Mr Szczyglo earlier this year. Bumar has already sold about $400m worth of weapons and equipment to Iraq under a series of contracts signed in 2003. The Polish commercial effort in Iraq will be helped by the appointment of a new ambassador to Baghdad, retired general Edward Pietrzyk. Warsaw has been disappointed with Iraqi contracts, a sore point because Poland was one of only four countries to take part in the initial invasion in 2003, and continues to maintain a military presence there despite widespread opposition in Poland.
“We feel we have more right to do business in Iraq than countries not in the coalition, but we realise we still have to win these contracts,” says Mr Skowron. Last year the government-owned holding company reported sales of 2.5bn zlotys ($880m), and earned a profit of 8m zlotys. Its sales are a sharp increase from the early years following the collapse of communism, when most export markets dried up and Bumar was forced to rely on sales to the Polish military.
Labels: Bumar, Dzik armored vehicles, Edward Pietrzyk, Iraqi special forces, Poland, training
