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Minister of National Defence Adrian Tutuianu on Thursday stated that the Romanian Naval Forces' endowment programme with the four new corvettes has a component that includes the achievement of the second stage of upgrading and equipping with weapons the frigates of the 22 Type (F-221 King Ferdinand and F-222 Queen Mary), acquired 14 years ago from the UK, according to the government resolution draft published on the Ministry of National Defence (MApN) website for public consultation.
"The four corvettes will be bought in an effort that we think will take seven days. This will be a competitive dialogue procedure and we are interested, as I told you, in having as many as possible of these economic operations carried out in Romania, for we need economic development, we need jobs, taxes and fees paid and important technological transfer. I have seen certain comments that have appeared in the mass media that nobody comes to build a shipyard especially for us to produce four corvettes. This was understood wrongly; what we are interested in are the collaborations with the Romanian industry in the field and there are companies running on Romanian capital or foreign capital that have production facilities in Romania, Braila, Galati, Tulcea, Constanta and even Mangalia," explained Tutuianu, at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base.
According to the Minister, it was decided that the upgrading of the frigates must take place at the same time with the building of the four corvettes. "The frigates belong to the same package of measures, for the effort of having the frigates modernized must be made simultaneously with the building of the corvettes and they must be complementary things, to complete one another, with the endowment component to be added to this combat ships," Minister of National Defence Adrian Tutuianu underscored.
