Sixty percent of drone manufacturers’ capacity is underutilized due to lack of government orders – Tech Force in UA president
Drone Industry
Lifting the ban on the export of Ukrainian arms will not affect deliveries of drones to the military, as manufacturers’ capacities are currently underutilized.
Co-founder of FRDM and president of the Tech Force in UA (TFUA) Vadym Yunyk said this in an interview with Censor.NET as part of the "Drone Industry" project.
"Sixty percent of enterprises are not utilized at all. The problem is not exports but the lack of money and orders," Yunyk stressed.
The TFUA president is convinced that exports, on the contrary, can play a positive role.
"If companies can export surplus production, that gives them the ability to survive: to pay salaries, keep engineers, and develop manufacturing. Any profit a company makes goes into R&D—improving and creating new models relevant to the front. Without this process, innovation stops," Vadym Yunyk noted.
He added that open exports also mean opportunities for cooperation with European partners: access to technologies and joint development.
"This also opens the way for investment. What is coming into Ukraine today is a drop in the ocean compared to the real possibilities. Major investors will not invest in companies that can sell their products to only one monopsony buyer, to the state, which cannot guarantee that tomorrow it will purchase your products. Therefore, exports are a chance. But controlled, so that drones do not end up in countries unfriendly to us. There are no issues with the Ramstein countries, the EU, and NATO—they supply us with equipment themselves. We should give them the same access to our developments," Vadym Yunyk summed up.
As reported, earlier President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine already has initial proposals for partners regarding the export of its own modern weapons, including naval drones. The head of state clarified that the shortfall in defense-industry financing will be covered thanks to the export of certain types of Ukrainian weapons.
Overall, the authorities plan to allow limited exports of Ukrainian arms. A corresponding framework will be developed within two weeks.
Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the Build with Ukraine program, which provides for the export of Ukrainian defense technologies and the opening of production lines abroad. This primarily concerns the manufacture of drones of various types, missiles, and artillery in partner countries that already finance defense production or plan to do so.
