Monday, May 12, 2008

More Militarisation of Wales

£6bn Piranha deal will bring new jobs boost???
ic Wales - 09 May 2008
... UK Government to award a multi-billion pound armed services training facility contract at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan to the Metrix consortium. ...
May 9 2008 by Sion Barry, South Wales Echo
THE economy received a major boost yesterday when after the Ministry of Defence awarded a £6bn contract for a new generation of rapid response military vehicles to a South Wales-based company.

US-owned General Dynamics, which employs 1,000 in the area, mainly at Oakdale and Newbridge, was last night named as the preferred bidder for the Piranha V, which will replaced the Army’s Saxon and FV430 rapid response battlefield transportation fighting vehicles.
General Dynamics, which also works with Cardiff University on its research, is now likely to create a significant number of jobs, but it cannot yet say how many.

General Dynamics is also in the running for two more FRES contracts, both worth around £6bn, which have yet to be awarded. If secured they would be another major boost to the Welsh defence sector.

Yesterday’s announcement follows last year’s decision by the UK Government to award a multi-billion pound armed services training facility contract at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan to the Metrix consortium.

General Dynamics has been operational in South Wales since 2001, when it won a contract to supply the MoD with a new state of the art battlefield communication system known as Bowman.

First Minister Rhodri Morgan said: “This announcement will not only help safeguard the future of the highly skilled employees at the company's state-of-the-art facilities in Wales, but sends a clear message that Wales has the skills and the infrastructure to produce high quality and internationally competitive products.”

Is this the only answer for Wales - is the only vision we have for Wales - more military
business -

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