SIG Sauer to close German weapons factory

SIG Sauer announced it intended by year’s end to close its factory at Eckernförde near Kiel, capital of Germany’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein.

It blamed “locational handicaps” hindering its diverse pistol and sports guns sales, claiming a “few other local producers” were preferred in government purchases for Germany’s police forces and Bundeswehr military.

German ublic broadcaster NDR quoted manager Tim Castagne as saying the workers’ council at the Eckernförde site, established in 1951, had been briefed about some 125 job losses as well plans to fulfil purchase orders.

“Due to its international orientation, SIG Sauer is systematically excluded from tenders [in Germany], said Castagne, intimating, said NDR, that most of its weapons were developed in the United States.

SIG Sauer, with interlinked ownerships, and origins going to 1864 in Switzerland, relocated within the USA in 1990, establishing at Newington, New Hampshire, an arms factory and “state-of-the-art” training academy, now with 1,200 employees.

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