Export of Weapons to Norway
Hanwha Land Systems, a defense subsidiary of the Hanwha Group, announced on December 21 that the company inked a contract to export 24 K9 Self-Propelled Guns and six K10 Ammunition Resupply Armored Vehicles by 2020 with the NDMA at the Norwegian Ministry of Defense on December 20 (local time). The total export volume ran to 245.2 billion won and this deal enabled Korea to tap into the European defense market once again.
With this contract, Korea succeeded in exporting the K9 self-propelled Guns for the third time this year alone. The total contract amounts to US$ 720 million this year if 48 units to Norwegian are combined with 48 units to Finland and 100 units to India.
Since its first export to Turkey in 2001, the number of K9 Self-Propelled Guns which have been contracted for export to date, reached about 500 which can translate into about 1.45 billion US dollars. The self-propelled gun achieved the largest export performance among ground weapon systems produced domestically.
In particular, the contract includes K10 Ammunition Resupply Armored Vehicles that are packaged with K9 Self-Propelled Guns. It is the first time for K10 Ammunition Resupply Armored Vehicles to be exported overseas and this deal will increase a possibility of exporting the armored vehicle to overseas markets, according to Hanwha Land Systems.
During Norway’s acquisition of self-propelled guns, the K9 Self-Defense Force competed against equipment of leading European defense companies such as those of Switzerland and Germany in Norway in January 2016, and received high points in winter tests, proposal evaluation and due diligence among others.
K9 Self-Propelled Gun jointly developed by Hanwha Land Systems and the National Defense and Science Institute in 1998 has a shooting range of 40 kilometers and has been deployed in Korea since 2000.