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By Mike Stone and Essi Lehto
WASHINGTON/HELSINKI, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Finland has chosen
U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighters in a
tender to replace ageing F/A-18 combat jets and plans to order
64 planes with weapons systems, the government said on Friday.
Lockheed Martin competed for the deal with Sweden's Saab
, U.S. rival Boeing, France's Dassault
and Britain's BAE Systems.
The procurement is worth an estimated 8.378 billion euros
($9.44 billion), the government said.
"When comparing military performance, the F-35 best met our
needs," Defence Minister Antti Kaikkonen told a news conference.
Military planemakers have been vying for the deal since late
2015, when the Finnish defence ministry began the search for a
new jet to replace Finland's old Hornet fighter bought in 1992
from McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing.
Finland is the 14th nation to opt for the F-35.
The choice strengthens the small Nordic nation's defence
cooperation with its allies, most significantly the United
States and Norway, said researcher Charly Salonius-Pasternak at
the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
"Finland and Norway already train together in the north so
it will be a political decision to determine what intelligence
is shared and when," he told Reuters, referring to the potential
for the jets to share data in real time.
Unlike Norway, Finland is not a member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO) but it has forged stronger ties with
the organisation in recent years and chosen military equipment
compatible with NATO members.
In 2014 Finland and Sweden signed an agreement to train
together and allow NATO assistance in crisis situations.
Reuters reported earlier on Friday that Lockheed Martin was
set to win the contract.
($1 = 0.8871 euros)
(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington and Essi Lehto in
Helsinki
Editing by David Goodman, Tim Hepher and Terje Solsvik)
