The largest exporter is HS Produkt from Karlovac.
In 2016, more than 11% of firearms imported to the United States came from Croatia, making it the third largest exporter of such weapons to the United States, reports Jutarnji List on March 6, 2018.
According to data quoted by statista.com, 5,134,771 pieces of firearms were imported from other countries to the United States. Croatia exported 574,486 firearms, behind only Austria with 1,322,694, which represented 26% of total imports, and Brazil with 727,341 firearms, or 14.2% of all firearm imports into the United States.
The most significant Croatian arms exporter to the United States is HS Produkt from Karlovac. The company was established in 1991, and in 2001 it signed a long-term contract with the US company Springfield Armory.
HS Produkt initially produced about 6,000 pistols for the US market. In fifteen years, the number has grown to almost 600,000 pistols worth about 100 million euro. The company is one of the world’s largest pistol manufacturers, and it exports 97% of its production to the United States.
According to the report on the export and import of military lethal and non-lethal military equipment for commercial purposes in 2016, published by Croatia’s Ministry of Economy, that year Croatian companies exported armaments and military equipment worth 1.7 billion kuna, or approximately 224 million euro. The figure in 2015 amounted to approximately 780 million kuna, or 102 million euro, which means that Croatian exports of lethal and non-lethal equipment grew by more than 50% in just a year.
Translated from Jutarnji List (reported by Lea Balenović).
