The African market is boiling – but will Israel benefit?

The African market is boiling – but will Israel benefit?

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African countries are expected to spend up to US $20 billion on armored vehicles over the next decade, according to industry analysts and business executives, as governments battle a growing number of heavily armed transnational terrorist groups.

Specifically, nations in the Horn of Africa, Sahel-Magreb and West Africa are expected to invest in force protection equipment, experts say.

i-HLS Israel Homeland Security

The experts made their forecast ahead of the Armoured Vehicles Africa conference in London the first week of July, which came as renowned armored vehicle manufacturers from Italy, Serbia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Czech Republic, China and Britain scramble to snap up deals in Africa, as evidenced by recent acquisitions and moves by some companies to set up manufacturing plants in Africa.

Kenya, meanwhile, announced a US $700 million defense budget, which includes acquiring more and better-protected armored military vehicles in the 2013-’14 fiscal year; spending will go up to $800 million in the 2015-’16 budget.

However, the largest armored vehicle market remains in North and northwestern Africa, where countries are battling Islamist insurgencies that rely on heavy bombs and improvised explosives.

This year, Libya has ordered 300 BDRM and BVP-1 armored vehicles from the Czech Republic. The supply agreement includes the refurbishment of a further 300 variants of the heavily armored BDRM vehicles already in service with the Libyan Army.

In April, Libya received a total of 69 armored cars, with 20 Puma armored fighting vehicles coming from Italy and 49 Jordanian-made NIMR armored vehicles from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said last week that the country needs more heavily armed, high mobility armored cars for border security, rapid response, force protection, logistics, mine detection and VIP transport operations.

Due to its protracted counterterrorism war, Algeria remains one of the larger armored vehicle markets. In 2011, the country ordered 54 Fuchs armored vehicles worth $248 million from Germany, and it is set to receive a further 1,200 of the same vehicle over the next 10 years.

Sensing the high potential for market growth in North Africa, UAE-based armored vehicle and defense equipment maker Tawazun Holdings last year signed an agreement with the Algerian government to set up a factory to jointly produce NIMR armored vehicles in Algiers.