OTTAWA, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday launched the country's first defense industrial strategy, outlining plans to reshape Canada's defense supply chain.
"Defending Canada means more than the size of our military," Carney said at a launch event in Montreal. "It also means the strength of our industries, the resilience of our economy and our capacity to act independently when it matters most. Our national security and our economic security go hand in hand."
He added that the new strategy "ensures Canada remains a sovereign nation, in charge of its own destiny."
Under the strategy, the Canadian government plans to invest over 500 billion Canadian dollars (some 365 billion U.S. dollars) over the next decade to safeguard national security, economic prosperity and sovereign integrity, according to a press release from the prime minister's office.
A key objective of the plan is to award 70 percent of federal defense contracts to Canadian firms and to grow Canadian defense industry revenues by 240 percent over the next 10 years, said the release.
It said that the initiative seeks to overhaul a system long criticized for being overly complex, slow and excessively reliant on international suppliers.
The release also announced the establishment of a new defense investment agency as the central executive body of the strategy, tasked with overhauling and streamlining Canada's defense procurement processes to ensure more agile delivery of capabilities.
Canada is on track to meet the NATO defense spending target of 2 percent of its GDP within this fiscal year, said the release, adding that the government plans to further increase the share to 5 percent of GDP by 2035. ■
