Dmytro Kuleba the Foreign Affairs Minister of Ukraine said on Saturday that African countries have expressed interest in hosting Ukrainian defense manufacturing plants.
Kuleba revealed during Ukraine’s first international defense industry forum.
Kuleba said that as a geographic region, Africa was one of the top customers of Ukraine’s defense contractors and its countries would like Ukrainian products to return to their markets.
The production of Ukrainian weapons on African soil is seen as an alternative to currently-impossible exports, Kuleba said, calling it a “new trend.”
Ukraine has stayed within the top 20 defense exporting countries for the majority of its independence, occasionally climbing to 11th place. The country is especially renowned for its advanced aircraft engines.
The forum brought together over 252 defense contractors from over 30 countries, as the Ukrainian government tries to build closer relationships and joint production capacities with the world’s leading arms manufacturers, to include localized production of foreign arms inside Ukraine.
