Obrovac among locations for new ammunition factory

An ammunition factory will be built in Croatia. In complex security and geopolitical circumstances, the largest investments in defense capabilities are being made so far. The government has also provided support for the production of small-caliber ammunition in partnership with the Italian giant, the leading arms manufacturer - Beretta. The factory would be near Obrovac.

The first Croatian ammunition factory could soon be built on 28 hectares between Obrovac and Bilišane. Some citizens believe that this would be good for the development of a somewhat sleepy town.

“This is more of an economic and security advantage for us, for Croatia. But I may not agree with the position. There are many areas that have been devastated, we also have mines, we also have the area of the aluminum oxide factory, these are some kind of former industrial facilities that I think should be revitalized with projects like this,” said Ivan Matić from the MOST party.

The government confirmed that the Obrovac area is one of the possible locations, which is not yet known exactly.

Last year, the City Council converted this land into an economic and production zone through amendments to the Spatial Development Plan of the City of Obrovac. The City Administration did not respond to questions about whether this change was made specifically because of the ammunition factory.

"Apart from publicly available information, we do not have any other information, so we would not make any public statements," the Obrovac City Administration said in its response.

The Italian arms giant Beretta Holding is interested in building an ammunition factory. The government has supported this, and negotiations will be held between several ministries.

“Very soon we will have the basic dimensions of the factory, the location of the capacities and everything else that is important. It is not just Beretta. We, as the Government, are open to all investments related to the production of ammunition, both small-caliber and large-caliber, and in the case of Beretta, we are talking about small-caliber ammunition,” emphasized Ivan Anušić, Minister of Defense.

In Croatia, we already have a very successful factory for pistols, assault rifles and machine guns – the Kuna - which, admittedly, exports almost all of its products.

“Let's say that the production of pistols is somewhere between 400 and 500 thousand on average per year. There are 20-30 thousand rifles, and last year we started with Kuna, we can say that it is 40-50 thousand Kuna per year” said Željko Pavlin, director of HS Produkt.

Military analyst Marinko Ogorec says that we lack almost everything in terms of weapons, so he welcomes the plan to build an ammunition factory.

“Finally. This should have been done a long time ago. This is one of the first steps for Croatia to become self-sufficient, to some extent self-sufficient in its own military production. We have an excellent weapons factory, but we do not have an ammunition factory. Now this would simply be a qualitative, extremely important upgrade,” says Ogorec.

According to the Ministry of Defense, in the face of complex security and geopolitical circumstances, the largest investments in security to date are being made, and the construction of an ammunition factory would be worth several hundred million euros.

Source: HRT