FINLAND PLANS TO bring together its national defence industry into a new state-owned company, whose activities will include assembly of the country's McDonnell Douglas F-18s.
The F-18 work had been handled by the aviation division of Valmet, a broad-based industrial group, which has decided to refocus on core business areas such as paper making and forestry equipment.
The aviation division, which employs 1,000 and has sales of FIM260 million ($60 million), also carries out subcontract and maintenance work on Finnish air force aircraft and manufactures tail fins for the Saab 2000 airliner. This will now be transferred to the new company.
The Valmet unit has made losses in recent years, although that was expected to turn around with the start of work on the 64 F-18s ordered by Finland.
The new state company will bring together a range of other ammunition, armaments and defence-electronics manufacturers, including the Sisu group's Pasi military-vehicle unit; rifle-manufacturer Sako; the Nokia targeting business; and Instrumentointi, which manufactures electronics for the F-18.
A merger of Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish defence corporations is also being mooted as a possible option to give the region's businesses greater world scale.
Source: Flight International
