Paper: Finland invited Estonia to join howitzer tender
Finnish defense minister Jussi Niinistö suggested that Estonia and Finland issue a joint tender for new artillery guns. Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat wrote on Saturday that the Estonian government had been informed about Finland’s plans.
Finland will likely buy its guns in South Korea, from producer Samsung Techwin. The country has been looking for a supplier since 2015, and is testing Samsung’s K9 Thunder howitzers and requesting improvements.
Though Niinistö didn’t want to go into any detail concerning the price of the new equipment, he confirmed that the size of the tender was in the hundreds of millions of euros. “The transaction is particularly important to the army,” Niinistö was quoted saying in the paper.
The minister said that Finland had offered Estonia to participate in the same tender. “We have informed Estonia that this tender has been started,” Niinistö said, adding that the two countries had cooperated in tenders before.
The last time had been profitable for Estonia: Finland ordered ten radar systems, Estonia two, while still profiting from the same discount.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn
