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Sweden trims its defence budget

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, April 6, IRNA
Sweden-Defence budget
Sweden is preparing to cut krone 900 million (USD 116m) from its Defence Material Administration and reduce research funding by krone 500m as the government looks to offset the drop in defence spending.

According to Jane's Defence, most of the cuts, which take effect in 2008, are part of parliament's aim of steering the armed forces from "defence against invasion to operational defence."
In addition to reductions in procurement spending, it is proposed that the budget of the armed forces' central command will be cut by krone 250 million.

"There must be a redistribution of resources from support and administration to operational activities," Defence Minister Leni Bjorklund was quoted as saying.

Military spending in Sweden has slowly been cut in recent years in real terms with the government's defence budget held around krone 44 billion since 2000.

The impact was said to have been felt by Sweden's defence and aerospace group Saab, which has been looking to foreign markets to offset the spending drop in the domestic market.

Export sales accounted for 56 percent of Saab's orders during 2005, up from 48 percent in the previous year. Last year,
international orders accounted for as much as 75 percent of the forward order book.

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