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Bulgaria signs helicopter rehab with Elbit

Mon, Dec 12 2005 01:00 CET

byBusiness Staff

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ISRAELI company Elbit Systems will repair and upgrade 18 combat and transport helicopters of the Bulgarian air force over a period of three years.


This will happen under a contract signed on December 2 by Defence Minister Vesselin Bliznakov and Elbit's vice president Menahem Bargev.


The transaction has a value of 57.33 million euro, Bliznakov said. The first upgraded helicopter is expected in the summer of 2006, so that Bulgaria could meet its commitments to NATO.


The offset programme included in the transaction is for 300 per cent, or more than 170 million euro. The project envisages the participation of TEREM military repair plants with an order for more than 20 million Bulgarian leva.


According to Bliznakov, by this project, Bulgaria's helicopter park will be modernised and the required operative compatibility for participation in joint NATO missions will be achieved.


However, the current signing of the contract became possible only after the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) revoked a decision by the former defence minister Nikolai Svinarov, which halted the deal with Israeli company Elbit Systems for the modernisation of Bulgaria's existing fleet of Mi-24 and Mi-17 Soviet-made helicopters.


The SAC ruling actually bounded the Defence Ministry to the deal with Elbit because it could not be appealed.


Bulgaria chose Elbit in a tender in December 2004 to modernise 18 of its Mi-17 combat and Mi-24 transport helicopters.


The Israeli firm intended to set up a consortium with US defence major Lockheed Martin for the deal.


The public procurement procedure then failed in January 2005, when Russia said Elbit did not have permission from the Russian producer (which inherited the Soviet plant) to perform the upgrade. The rules of the tender required the contractor to hold such a permit.


Svinarov then halted the procedure in March, citing "failure to reach the tender's initially set criteria".

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