A dozen companies from different Argentine provinces won the tenders to provide the Armed Forces with at least 75,000 uniforms and more than one hundred thousand pairs of footwear; while a coach from Buenos Aires was awarded the contract to equip the new fleet of troop transfer trucks for the Argentine Army.
The Minister of Defense, Jorge Taiana, presented part of the material to the 602 Arsenals Battalion in the Buenos Aires town of Boulogne, which included trucks, vans, buses and ambulances manufactured nationally or within Mercosur, and a batch of 3,500 uniforms and nationally produced footwear.
These contracts arose from the launch of the National Defense Fund (Fondef), an initiative that allocates a multi-year budget for the equipment of the armed forces, assigning priority to the development of local suppliers.
“This is an example of what can be done when political will, effort and confidence in our own capabilities are aligned. All this new equipment is the result of Fondef,” Taiana reviewed.
Taiana stressed that “the Fondef is a tool that allows us to repair, modernize, or acquire the equipment that the Armed Forces need to attend to their main mission and their subsidiary tasks; the priority is to seek or promote local suppliers and in cases where you can find them abroad.
“This purchase of uniforms that we are presenting today meets two very important characteristics; first, it was done through a bidding process with the participation of 16 companies from different provinces, unifying the requirements of the Armed Forces, which allowed us to make a savings and guarantee quality criteria, and secondly, an ecosystem of textile companies was strengthened that, based on a multi-year program, will be able to make the necessary investments knowing that the amortization of these new machinery is foreseeable”, he pondered.
Photos: Osvaldo Fanton.
The uniforms presented this Tuesday were produced by the firm Confecat of the province of Catamarca, while the combat boots were made by the company Borcal of the city of Buenos Aires; Both companies are part of the project “Clothing for the Armed Forces to Strengthen the National Textile and Footwear Industry”, developed within the framework of Fondef.
The Undersecretary of Operational Planning and Defense Logistics Service, Lucía Kersul, stated in an interview with Télam that “the Armed Forces have a constant demand for a large number of uniforms and it is difficult for a single supplier to meet all the demand; In addition, before the Fondef sanction, it was difficult to make projections beyond the budget year, which is why it was also difficult for potential suppliers to think about investments that they could amortize.
With the sanction of the Fondef, he stressed, the possibility of multi-year contracts was opened.
“Together with the Secretary of Industry of the Ministry of Productive Development, in the midst of a pandemic, we opened a call process through Zoom meetings with representatives of the textile and footwear industry, where we raised awareness of the demand of the armed forces and listened to the needs. of the potential producers that we accompanied so that they can present themselves as bidders”, he recalled.
In this regard, he pointed out that “tenders were launched last September for some 75,000 uniforms and almost 120,000 pairs of footwear, of which half are for combat, 16 companies from different parts of the country applied and there were 9 that were winners and they have already started to produce and deliver the clothing”.
In the process there were several challenges, companies that had to expand their production capacity and some limitations with inputs such as the insufficient production of velcro in Argentina to supply the order and “it had to be imported; a very valuable thing about this project is that participating companies come out stronger and with the ability to respond to new proposals,” he added.
Kersul emphasized that “many local suppliers can be developed through Fondef, for example, the troop trucks that we are presenting today were bodied by a firm from the Buenos Aires party of San Andrés de Giles that provided them with anti-roll bars, padded and individual seats, and also three-point seat belts”.
The equipment delivered
There were 17 Volkswagen Robus 17230 cargo trucks of Brazilian origin, 10 Volkswagen Costellation 19420 campaign tractor trucks of Brazilian origin, 10 Mercedes Benz Atego 1726 trucks of national origin, 3 Iveco personal transport groups of Brazilian origin, 40 Peugeot Partner utility vehicles of national, 7 medium-complexity Toyota Hilux ambulances of national origin and 1 Volkswagen tank truck useful for cross-country logistics supply to the different Wheeled, Mechanized and armored Vehicles deployed on the ground.
In addition, among the materials that were presented there are eight Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) with 35 min of autonomy, 79 Cal 7.62mm M240 B machine guns, and 73 conversion kits for 12.7mm caliber M2A2QCB machine guns (quick barrel change) from American origin.
the presences
Present with the minister were the Chief of Staff, Héctor Mazzei; the Secretaries of Research, Industrial Policy and Production for Defense, Daniela Castro; of Military Coordination in Emergencies, Inés Barboza Belistri; of International Affairs for Defense, Francisco Cafiero; the undersecretaries of Operational Planning and Defense Logistics Service, Lucía Kersul; of Scientific Research and Industrial Policy for Defense, Roberto Adaro; and of International Affairs, Roberto De Luise.
On behalf of the military, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Juan Martín Paleo; the head of the Army, Division General Guillermo Olegario Pereda, among other civil and military authorities.
