According to Reuters, South Korea's Hanwha Aerospace said on Wednesday it won a 1.38 trillion won ($1 billion) order from Romania to supply self-propelled howitzers. The deal is Romania's largest arms acquisition deal in seven years and includes 54 K9 howitzers, ammunition and 36 K10 resupply vehicles, South Korea's largest defence company by revenue said. The contract lasts until July 2029, Hanwha Aerospace said. The South Korean arms procurement agency, Defense Acquisition Program Administration, confirmed the details of the deal in a separate statement. Hanwha Aerospace shares rose more than 5% to a record high in early morning trade, versus a 0.1% drop in the wider market. Overseas orders for Hanwha have jumped since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as countries sought to bolster their arms with quick, reliable supply, analysts said. Hanwha's land defence business has seen its order backlog swell to about 30 trillion won at the end of March this year from 5.1 trillion won at end-2021. Analysts said South Korean defence firms are able to ship arms quickly with lower costs and provide continual maintenance partly due to the economy of scale from supplying the standing armed forces in South Korea, which is still technically at war with North Korea. Hanwha now holds more than 50% share of the global market for howitzer exports, according to data by NH Investment & Securities. "Given that the end of a war does not mean an end to the growth of defence spending, and that (U.S. presidential candidate Donald) Trump explicitly demanded that NATO and other European countries increase their share of defence costs, opportunities are expected to expand" for South Korean defence firms, said Meritz Securities analyst Lee Ji-ho in a note on Tuesday.
Romania was formally designated the 43rd country to join the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) on Friday, January 10. According to the Romanian ambassador to Washington, Andrei Muraru, Romanian citizens will be able to travel to the US without the need for a visa starting March 31, 2025. "Romania becomes the first country in the […]
Cluj-Napoca, the city in Romania with some of the highest rents and a fast-growing IT industry, is closer to banning smoking in playgrounds and parks after mayor Emil Boc expressed his support for the measure. The mayor cited the prioritization of public health as the reason behind such a ban. He mentioned that he has […]
Romania's Sibiu County Emergency Clinical Hospital will receive a robotic system to prepare cytostatic drugs needed by cancer patients, along with other equipment, after the County Council obtained funds from the European Regional Development Fund. With an estimated value of EUR 1 million, the "Robotic Composition System for Sterile Preparations of Cytostatic Drugs" is among […]
Romania’s government adopted in its January 10 meeting a decision granting an extra day off to public sector employees at the beginning of May. Thus, Friday, May 2, will be an official day off for public sector workers, linking the legal holiday of May 1 (Labor Day) with the weekend (May 3-4). This...
The Ministry of Environment announced that 2024 was the hottest year in the history of Romania's meteorological records. Red alerts for heat waves began in June of 2024, with the longest consecutive periods of persistent and intense heat waves, six consecutive days, between July 13-18 and August 15-20. "The year 2024 is the hottest year...
Supporters of former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu gathered outside the Parliament Palace in Bucharest, which houses the Constitutional Court, on January 10, demanding a rerun of the second round of the presidential elections. The protest, dubbed "The Great Judicial Union," was initiated by Georgescu, who called on his supporters to challenge the election annulment, as […]
