The Finnish government, together with private businesses, plans to increase the production of ammunition, the country’s Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen said in an interview with the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper published on Saturday.
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“The goal is to further increase the already large production of ammunition through cooperation between the state and industry,” he said.
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Money can also be received for these purposes from funds created by the EU; it is expected that the Finnish government will make a decision on funding in the near future, the publication clarifies.
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“We are not talking about hundreds of millions of euros for the state, but tens of millions,” Häkkänen clarified.
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The minister is confident that the project will arouse interest among businesses, “since the trade in ammunition is unlikely to stop in the coming years.”
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“The need to build up the defense industry is not a matter of one year or two years, but a long-term project,” he said, explaining that “the Russian threat will not disappear quickly.”
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Finland became the 31st NATO country on April 4, 2023. It has the longest external border with Russia, which is also the border of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance and reaches 1,340 kilometers.
