New Patria armored personnel carriers for the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces will be produced at a new plant on the island of Hokkaido.

Hokkaido NP reported on this.

The vehicles developed by the Finnish company Patria will be manufactured at the new Japan Steel Works M&E Muroran Works plant in Muroran, Hokkaido.

Production is designed to be fully localized, i.e., the armored hull will be welded in Japan, and engines, transmissions, and individual parts will be manufactured in Japan.

According to Japan Steel Works, the plant will be completed in 2025, and production of the first serial armored personnel carriers is expected to begin in 2026.

In 2022, the Ministry of Defense of Japan preferred the Finnish APC in comparative tests, which had advantages in price and potential platform development compared to the U.S. LAV 6.0 and the Japanese MAV.

When formulating the new defense budget for 2024, the Japanese Ministry of Defense stated in its documents that a total of 810 armored personnel carriers would be purchased to replace four separate types of specialized armored vehicles in the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces.

First, the Type 96 armored personnel carriers manufactured by Komatsu will be replaced as a priority, as according to the new Japanese doctrine, they do not meet modern requirements for troop protection and have poor mine protection.

The Patria AMV XP will first be delivered to the reorganized rapid response units, which are currently the frontline units and will be used to defend remote islands.

The Ministry has already placed two orders for the production of these armored personnel carriers and paid for them. Thus, in 2023, 26 units were ordered with a total value of 88 million US dollars, and in 2024, 28 vehicles worth 130 million US dollars were ordered.

In addition to producing armored personnel carriers, the Japanese Ministry of Defense is seeking to continue close cooperation with the Finnish company. The ministry is also showing great interest in unmanned underwater systems and intelligence and surveillance systems.

Militarnyi previously reported that the Japanese Ministry of Defense had placed an order to purchase new Mitsubishi MAV family universal armored vehicles.