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Polands signs 3 5b jet deal Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/04/18/poland.fighters.ap/http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/04/18/poland.fighters.ap/
Poland signs $3.5bn U.S. jet deal
DEBLIN, Poland (AP) --Poland has signed a deal to buy 48 F-16 jet fighters from U.S. company Lockheed Martin for $3.5 billion -- the biggest defense contract by a former Soviet bloc country since the end of the Cold War.
The agreement, concluded Friday, also secures U.S. investment in Poland, business deals with Polish manufacturers and the transfer of technology.
The investment package is worth $7.5 billion, but its value could ultimately exceed $12 billion as projects are added or updated, said Polish industry minister Jerzy Hauser.
"Today we have a new quality and a new momentum in Polish-U.S. economic relations," U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill said at the signing ceremony at the Polish Air Force Academy in Deblin, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Warsaw.
The package "strengthens not only Poland's security but that of all of Europe, and the role of NATO," he said.
The Polish government announced in December that it had chosen the U.S. government-backed bid over two rival European offers -- the Swedish-British Gripen and the French-made Mirage 2000 -- to bring its air force up to NATO standards.
But negotiating the so-called offset deals took time.
The offset agreement runs for 10 years and involves nearly 50 U.S. companies, including plans by General Motors to expand a plant in Poland and a pledge by Motorola to invest in a communications system for Polish public services.
Hill said it was the biggest offset agreement ever.
"We can describe this as the contract of the century," said Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski, who signed the F-16 contract with U.S. Gen. Tome Walters.
The deal also calls for a subsidiary of Halliburton, based in Houston, Texas, to modernize a major Polish refinery at Gdansk and for cooperation between U.S. and Polish pharmaceutical companies.
Polish plants are to make aircraft engines and engine parts for Lockheed Martin and for Pratt & Whitney.
Polish leaders hope the deals will create jobs and boost the sluggish economy, which slowed to about 1 percent growth last year after years of strong performance following the collapse of communism in 1989. Unemployment has reached post-communist highs of nearly 19 percent.
"Today's event is good news for the Polish air force, it's good news for the Polish economy and for the future of our country," Prime Minister Leszek Miller said at the signing ceremony.
Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Maryland, will be replacing Poland's Soviet-made MiG fighters. Deliveries of the planes are to start in 2006.
Poland joined NATO in 1999, along with Hungary and the Czech Republic.
On Tuesday, Polish defense officials signed a $1.2 billion deal for the delivery of 690 Finnish-made troop carriers over the next 10 years.
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