FILE PHOTO: The logo of German steel-to-elevators group ThyssenKrupp AG is pictured during the company's annual news conference in Essen, Germany, November 24, 2016. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo

ECKERNFOERDE, Germany (Reuters) - Norway plans to sign a deal to buy four submarines from ThyssenKrupp in 2019, Norwegian defense minister Marie Eriksen Soreide said on Tuesday during a visit with her German counterpart to a German marine base.

German media has reported the four submarines will cost 4.3 billion euros ($5.06 billion).

The purchase of the ships is part of a cooperation agreement between the two countries, under which Germany’s armed forces will buy two identical submarines from Germany’s ThyssenKrupp and missiles from Norway’s Kongsberg.

“We want to sign the deal in 2019 and get the first submarines in the mid-2020s,” Eriksen Soreide said.