(Bloomberg) -- Poland's government agreed to buy the Patriot missile defense system from the U.S., Polish state news agency PAP reported on Wednesday as President Donald Trump started his 16-hour visit to Warsaw.
In March, Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said he planned to sign a contract, valued at less than 30 billion zloty ($8 billion), with Patriot producer Raytheon Co. by the end of the year. The first deliveries of the missile interceptors, which have been a source of tension between NATO and Russia, may take place within two years, he said then.
Poland, a formerly communist nation that shares a border with Russia, is one of the few NATO members that meet the alliance's defense-spending target of 2 percent of economic output. Trump will meet his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Thursday to discuss military and energy security before traveling to Germany for a meeting of the G-20 industrialized nations.
PAP didn't reveal the source of its information, but said that Poland's Defense Ministry will hold a news conference on Thursday about the deal with the U.S. Department of Defense.
--With assistance from Konrad Krasuski
To contact the reporter on this story: Wojciech Moskwa in Warsaw at wmoskwa@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net.
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