This month the Lithuanian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Finance of the Netherlands have signed a contract on the transfer of surplus military vehicles, communications containers and airports service equipment from the reduced Royal Dutch Armed Forces, the Ministry of National Defence said.

The equipment will be dispersed across the units of the Lithuanian Armed Forces to replace unviable, dates and economically loss-making equipment. The total value of the contract comes to approximately LTL 10 million (EUR 2.8 million).

"Such acquirement of used but well-preserved military materiel will save financial resources for further procurement of other needful weaponry and equipment. We face a great need for modernising the Lithuanian Armed Forces, and we are really happy to have been able to acquire the equipment for the price economically favourable to Lithuania with regard to the current economic situation", attested Deputy Minister of National Defence Mykolas Juozapavicius.

The Netherlands, undergoing an austere force reduction, offers military vehicles previously used in the Royal Dutch Armed Forces for a smaller than market price for other countries.

"Modernisation and update of military equipment is an ongoing process – some of the currently operated out-of-date military vehicles are uneconomical because of the over-sized and costly fuel consumption while their maintenance and repair is expensive too. Such vehicles should be replaced by more recent military materiel," commented Lt Col Darius Adomaitis, Director of the Department of Armament and Control Systems of the Ministry of National Defence.

A portion of the materiel acquired from the Netherlands – trucks with communications and C2 containers, vehicles for jet fuel filling, runway clearing, snow clearing and salt spreading as well as dumper vehicles intended for various units of the Lithuanian Armed Forces – are planned to arrive in Lithuania as soon as mid-November 2012. The rest of the purchase will be brought till the middle of 2013. The contract also foresees that Dutch military instructors will train Lithuanian military personnel on using the acquired equipment.