Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Thursday aerospace and defense manufacturing giant RTX Corp. (NYSE: RTX) will build a $33 million missile manufacturing facility in East Camden.
The facility will be operated by RTX subsidiary Raytheon Technologies and the Israeli-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Raytheon and Rafael entered into a joint venture to build missiles in the U.S. for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Sanders said the deal came together during her summer trip to the Paris Air Show. The governor said the facility would create 30 jobs and build missiles for the Iron Dome and its American equivalent, the SkyHunter defense system.
“Soon everyone from the U.S. Marine Corps to the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] will be defending innocent lives using missiles built in Arkansas,” Sanders said during a news conference Thursday morning. “We are not bashful about building the aircraft and weapons necessary to keep Americans safe.”
Video: Click here to see recorded video of the news conference.
The manufacturing facility will initially make about 300 SkyHunter missiles annually and between 1,000 and 2,000 Tamir missiles per year for the Israeli defense system, Jeff Shockey, RTX senior vice president of global government relations, said.
“There has been a lot of talk in the media about the resiliencies of the nation’s munitions industrial base, that it can’t deliver what is needed,” Shockey said. “Today we are doing something about that.”
Arkansas economic development officials said the state provided a $250,000 infrastructure grant for the project as well as other income tax and sales tax refunds that are under a performance program.
East Camden is a hub for aerospace and defense manufacturing, which is now a billion-dollar industry in Arkansas. The new RTX facility builds upon the defense contractor’s existing production lines at Highland Industrial Park. Other major aerospace and defense manufactureres, including Aerojet Rocketdyne, also produce munitions in the area.
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