Premier Nicolae Ciuca has met, on Monday, at Victoria Palace with the vice president for international affairs of the company Lockheed Martin, Raymond Pisseli, informs the government.During the meeting, opportunities for the consolidation of the economic part of the Strategic Partnership with the US have been discussed, Lockheed Martin’s initiatives in the domain of industrial and research-development cooperation being presented, together with the Romanian companies and institutions. The prime minister stressed the importance of US support from the perspective of access to high-performance defense technology, such as multi-role aircraft, Himars, Patriot systems or Black Sea anti-missile batteries According to the quoted source, the ministry of national defence and the ministry of economy work together so that the Romanian defence industry have the capacity to manage the cooperation with Trans-Atlantic partners. In this sense, the increase of the defence budget at 2.5 % of GDP, starting with next year, will offer new financing opportunities to the respective industry. The Lockheed Martin company has been present for 25 years in Romania being involved in several projects which have a significant impact in different domains. In the present geo-political context, generated by the strategic relevance of the Black Sea and the need to strengthen resilience, including from the economic perspective, the development projects aim at a long term duration, with integrated approach of the multiple platforms where there is collaboration at present moment.