Landmark conference explores building better UK/Romania defence industry partnerships

Around 100 senior leaders from the defence, diplomatic and professional communities came together in Bucharest, Wednesday 18 March, for a groundbreaking conference on building better UK/Romania defence industry partnerships. Developing on themes from the UK/Romania Business report, Building better defence industry partnerships: opportunities in the new geopolitics, the event was hosted and supported by KPMG Romania.

Featuring a keynote address by Dr Rebecca Shah, Chargé d’affaires, British Embassy Bucharest, its three panels offered expert and incisive comment on new security challenges in the region, and how the Romanian defence industry can seize the moment to build new capability and capacity enabled by the UK/Romania strategic partnership.

Its opening panel understanding Romanian defence production and procurement, examined the state of the national defence industrial base and blockages to its modernisation in a spirited debate between Cristina Dragomirescu, Vice President, ARCTIS; Air Flotilla General Adrian Duță (ret.), Senior Advisor – Defence and Security, KPMG Romania; Alina Inayeh, Lead Advisor, Aspen Institute Romania; Marinel Moscaliuc, Executive Director, StarC4Sys and Andreea Zvac, Partner, Wolf Theiss.

Turning next to the defence innovation opportunity in Romania, its five featured speakers, Radu Blideran, Defence Programme Manager, INCAS; Horia-Răzvan Botiș, Board Member, NATO DIANA; Bogdan Iordache, General Partner, Underline Ventures; Kalin Stoyanov, Head of Business Development, Destinus and Dr David Webster, Founder, UK/Romania Business, made the case for how defence can become the next big tech success story in Romania.

A final panel UK/Romania defence co-operation and strategic partnership, leaned into the knowledge of Tudor Grecu, Partner and Head of Defence Sector CEE, KPMG Romania; Gen Daniel Petrescu (ret.), Chief of the Romanian Defence Staff, 2019-2023; Dr David Webster, Founder, UK/Romania Business, and Jerry Weston, Space Export Sales Director, Airbus Defence and Space UK, to lay out practical steps to establishing a greater footprint for British defence companies in Romania.

Reflecting on the success of the event, Dr David Webster, Founder of UK/Romania Business remarked “British companies have often overlooked the potential of the Romanian market. Their heads may now be turned by the abundance of new money, but if they’ve failed to build good local relations they may still struggle to gain traction here. We’re trying to change that, and this is what our conference has been about.” Dr Webster continued “In conversations with defence communities in both countries we’ve also often heard that Romania must bring industry directly and at early stage into discussions on procurement and equipment needs, and that the central role of ROMARM, and lack of delivery on defence industrial strategy, is holding the country back. UK expertise can help reform this and UK investment can support the development of new defence and defencetech strength right here in Romania.”