Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 19 / Trend R. Hafizoglu /
An agreement on building long-range missiles will be signed with China in late 2013, the Turkish Defense Industry Committee said today.
According to the information, the proposal of the Chinese company "CPMIEC" proved to be more profitable compared to other companies' proposals.
The Chinese company's project which envisages manufacturing FD- 2000 missiles technically leaves the Russian, American and French-Italian companies projects behind.
Earlier it was reported that on September 2013 at a meeting of the Turkish Defence Industry Executive Committee it was announced that the Chinese CPMIEC company won the tender for the creation of long range missiles in Turkey.
It was also reported that these missiles will be created by the Chinese company in cooperation with Turkish companies.
A meeting of the executive committee of the Turkish defence industry was chaired by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the participation of the head of the Turkish General Staff Necdet Ozel, Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz and Deputy Minister of the Defence Industry Murad Bayar.
Moreover, it is reported that the U.S. authorities informed Turkey of their concerns about the country's intentions to cooperate with China in the creation of missile defence systems.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the priority for Turkey is to create the missiles in his own country.
The Turkish defence industry has recently focused on developing and manufacturing its own products. Turkey managed to achieve a self-sufficiency level at 54 per cent in the defence industry.