The Secretary of State for Defense, Amparo Valcarce, has described this Monday as “historic” the increase of 25% of the Defense budget, up to 12,800 million euros, in the public accounts of next year during the opening of the fifth edition of the Army-Business Forum of Toledo.
Before some thirty defense companies, Valcarce sent a very clear message to the sector: “The industry must be up to the task and respond to investments,” underlines the Secretary of State for Defense in her speech. “We have taken firm and confident steps in that target of 2% of GDP in defense, set already in 2014,” he recalled. With this increase, he continued, “we will have reached 1.2% in 2023.”
Valcarce pointed out that 4,900 million euros of next year’s budget will go to special modernization programs and wanted to focus on two of them with special relevance for Castilla La Mancha, and more specifically, for Albacete: the modernization of the Tigre attack helicopter to the MKIII version and the NH90 multipurpose helicopter. The epicenter of both is the Airbus Helicopters plant in Albacete. Without leaving this community, he put Tecnobit as an example of a national industry, at the forefront and with dual technologies. This company is based in Valdepeñas (Ciudad Real).