Mateusz Morawiecki made the announcement at HSW premises in the southeastern city of Stalowa Wola on Wednesday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
He said: “The Polish state is placing huge orders with Polish plants, Polish factories.” He added: “We are creating a new, powerful manufacturing potential in the country.”
Morawiecki said the government had decided to "allocate funds from the state budget to Polish arms contractors."
He added that this was possible thanks to “strong public finances” and “the fixing of the budget.”
“There is no strong state without a strong budget, without strong public finances,” Morawiecki told reporters.
"The fixing of public finances gave us big potential to implement big defence orders,” he also said.
'First tranche'
Morawiecki announced in Stalowa Wola: “I have taken the decision to allocate PLN 600 million (EUR 126 million) to the HSW consortium. We can say it’s the first tranche.”
He added the next tranche “will total PLN 1.2 billion (EUR 250 billion), including PLN 100 million (EUR 21 million) for HSW’s subsidiary Autosan to produce tank destroyers, which are needed so much on the modern battlefield.”
Morawiecki told reporters that HSW’s products included the state-of-the-art Krab self-propelled gun howitzers, which “are performing very well in Ukraine” and “are in high demand around the world.”
Krab howitzers, Borsuk IFVs, Rak mortars
The prime minister said that, thanks to the injection of new funds, HSW will be making 48 Krab howitzers per year, including some for export markets, as well as up to 100 “world-class Borsuk (Badger) amphibious infantry fighting vehicles” and "an increased number of the Rak (Crayfish) self-propelled wheeled gun-mortars."
Morawiecki declared: “We are stepping up production for the Polish army as much as possible because the Polish army must be so strong that nobody dares, that Russia doesn’t dare, attack Poland.”
Wednesday is day 357 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, defence24.pl