ANKARA (Turkey), April 25, 2018, Author: Galina Zdravkova (Bm), Photo: defensenews.com

Altay tanks manufactured by the privately owned Turkish-Qatari company BMC will be delivered to Turkey under a multibillion-dollar contract, reported Defense News.

The awarding of the contract involving serial production of the Turkish first indigenous, new-generation main battle tank in the making was confirmed by a top procurement official by stating, “We will start contract negotiations with this group, as it emerged as the best bidder.” The company BMC has also confirmed the revealed information by adding that the official announcement will be made soon.

A batch of 250 tanks is to be initially manufactured under the Altay program with probable increase of the purchased by Turkey Altay armored vehicles up to 1,000 units.

Bids of three competitors for the mentioned contract have been reviewed since 2017 by the Defense Procurement Agency of Turkey, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industies or SSM. The other two bidders were the armored vehicle manufacturing companies FNSS and Otokar – manufacturer of the Altay’s prototypes and the largest Turkishe private defence company. Both companies are privately owned.

A contract between Otokar and SSM signed in 2008 involved development and fabrication of 4 prototypes of the Altay tanks at the amount of $500 million, but serial production was not included then.