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ZAGREB: Croatia invited Finland's Patria and Austria's Steyr to submit offers for sale of 126 armored personnel carriers to the former Yugoslav republic, state television HTV reported on Friday.
Croatia wants to speed up modernization of its outdated military equipment as it strives to meet the military alliance's standards and earn an invitation to join NATO next year.
The value of the purchase is estimated at more than 200 million euros ($259.8 million).
“The decision about whose vehicles will be bought should be brought by June, while the carriers should be delivered in two years,” HTV said.
Croatian media recently speculated that Zagreb could decide to satisfy both bidders and buy half of the vehicles from Finnish aerospace and defense firm Patria and another half from its Austrian rival Steyr which is a unit of the U.S. company General Dynamics Corp..
Patria is 73-percent owned by the Finnish state, while 27 percent belongs to aerospace and defense group EADS.
Croatia plans to spend some 14 billion kuna ($2.47 billion) by 2015 to buy new military equipment, including planes, ships and armored vehicles. It still owns much equipment of Soviet origin from the communist era.
Zagreb tentatively plans to modernize its air forces with American fighter F-16 or Sweden's JAS-39 Grippen. It is yet not clear when Croatia will make a definite choice.
The former Yugoslav republic has halved troop numbers to some 20,000 since 2000 and wants to end up with 16,000 personnel when it becomes a NATO member.
