Morocco has placed a significant order with the French missile manufacturer MBDA, an entry in the kingdom's official journal has confirmed. The 11 May entry stated that the government had secured a EUR192.1 million (USD210 million) loan from the French banking group BNP Paribas to finance a commercial contract that had been concluded between the Department of National Defence and MBDA France. It did not state what the order covered. The newspaper La Tribune, which is normally well informed about French defence exports, reported in January that Morocco placed a EUR200 million order for the land-based variant of MBDA's VL MICA air-defence system in 2019. La Tribune noted that Morocco had placed a second EUR200 million order in 2019 for Nexter's Caesar wheeled self-propelled howitzer. It added that the French shipyard Kership still hoped to secure a Moroccan order for Gowind patrol ships amid deteriorating relations between Rabat and Madrid. Rabat has also talked to France's Naval Group, as well as Spain's Navantia and Germany's TKMS, about a possible submarine order.
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