Poland's Armaments Group opens up to industry. Nearly 500 companies signed up on the coast alone

In the space of a single week, two of Poland's coastal regions reported ready for defence cooperation. Around 200 companies from West Pomerania turned up for the 4th Regional Defence Industry Forum in Szczecin, and seven days later, on 8 June, close to 250 firms from Pomerania attended the 5th Forum in Gdynia. Together that is almost half a thousand businesses from the Polish seaboard looking to enter the supply chain of the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ). In Gdynia the group also signed a cooperation agreement with the Pomeranian Special Economic Zone. For a region where the largest warships in the modern history of the Polish state are now being built, this is more than another matchmaking event - it is a signal that the maritime defence industry is opening up to hundreds of new suppliers, with the financial fuel for the whole operation coming from the billions of the EU's SAFE instrument.

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13 june 2026   |   13:20   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

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The coast reports for defence duty

It was an unusual week in the calendar of the Polish defence sector. Within just seven days the Polish Armaments Group staged two Regional Defence Industry Forums in two coastal voivodeships - first in Szczecin on 1 June, then in Gdynia on 8 June. Both editions drew strong interest: the West Pomeranian event attracted around 200 companies, the Pomeranian one close to 250. Combined, that is almost half a thousand businesses from the Polish coast that, in the span of a single week, declared their willingness to join the defence supply chain.

Both meetings are part of a wider campaign. PGZ is running a series of ten Regional Forums under the banner "Polish Industry for Security", aimed at drawing Polish manufacturers, technology companies and SMEs into the defence supply chain. The logic is the same everywhere: the group, for all its considerable capabilities, cannot single-handedly absorb the scale and pace of orders flowing in above all from the EU's SAFE programme. It needs a dense, smoothly functioning network of subcontractors - and so it is touring the country region by region, rather than waiting for firms to come to Warsaw.

Why has the coast proved so receptive? Because the competences the defence industry is hunting for - metalworking, welding, electronics, automation, precision mechanics, the integration of complex systems - are exactly the skills on which the maritime economy has rested for decades: shipyards, ports and the offshore supply base. The seaboard, associated mainly with the sea, therefore has a natural predisposition to become one of the key reservoirs of suppliers for the arms sector. Nowhere is this clearer than in Pomerania, where PGZ companies are now building the largest warships in the modern history of the Polish state - and that is where we begin.

Pomerania on the front line of defence cooperation

The turnout speaks for itself. Around 250 manufacturing, technology and SME firms attended the Gdynia edition of the "Polish Industry for Security" series, all of them looking to plug into the supply chain of the national defence champion. It was one of the most heavily attended regional editions of the Forum so far - and not by accident did it fall in Pomerania.

The region holds a special place in PGZ's defence ecosystem. Of the roughly 12,000 cooperating companies on the group's nationwide roster, almost 900 already come from Pomerania alone. That shows how deeply the Gdańsk and Gdynia industrial base - shipbuilding, metalworking, electronics, services - has long been woven into the production of equipment for the Polish Armed Forces. The Forum is meant to broaden and formalise that potential: after a presentation session covering, among other things, security-certification rules, current needs and the terms of cooperation with the group, dozens of one-on-one business talks followed with entrepreneurs eager to get into the game.

The event brought together representatives of PGZ's senior management, the Ministry of State Assets and - crucially for the maritime sector - three Pomeranian group companies tied directly to the marine economy.

Local content becomes government policy

The government side was represented by Eliza Zeidler, Secretary of State at the Ministry of State Assets, who summed up the purpose of the whole Forum tour in very concrete terms. In her view, PGZ's actions not only promote the idea of local content but genuinely increase the participation of domestic firms in supply chains across the sector's many investments.

- The Polish Armaments Group holds meetings in individual Polish cities in order to involve as many Polish entrepreneurs as possible in investments already under way or being prepared - seeking local partners and informing companies operating in each region about the rules and opportunities for joining joint projects. We are moving closer to entrepreneurs working in the country's regions. In practice this is local content in action - one of the priorities of the Ministry of State Assets and the government, intended to strengthen the share of domestic firms in supply chains and build the long-term competitiveness of the Polish economy, the deputy minister stressed.

It is an important political declaration. Local content - the requirement that as much of the value of defence orders as possible stays in the country - is ceasing to be a slogan from a presentation and becoming a criterion that decides where the money from the largest rearmament programme in the modern history of Poland actually goes.

Shipyards in the spotlight. PGZ's naval dimension in Pomerania

For readers of a maritime title, however, the key thread is a different one: who from PGZ sat down with local firms in Gdynia. And it was a strictly maritime line-up - PGZ Stocznia Wojenna (the PGZ Naval Shipyard), Stocznia Remontowa Nauta and the OBR Centrum Techniki Morskiej (Naval Technology R&D Centre). These are the three pillars of the group's Pomeranian arm and, at the same time, three addresses where the future of the Polish fleet is being shaped today.

- In the Pomeranian region our companies are engaged not only in building and modernising warships, but also in air-defence programmes such as Narew and in protecting critical infrastructure. Because of the scale and pace of orders - above all under the SAFE programme - the Polish Armaments Group needs a broad, smoothly functioning network of subcontractors across the whole country. It is a win-win: subcontractors gain access to large, multi-year contracts, noted Jan Grabowski, Vice-President of PGZ S.A.

Those words about "large, multi-year contracts" have a very tangible backdrop in Gdynia. It is in the halls of PGZ Stocznia Wojenna that the "Miecznik" programme is being delivered - the construction of three multi-role frigates of the Arrowhead 140 type for the Polish Navy, based on the design of Britain's Babcock International, with weapons and detection systems supplied by, among others, Thales and MBDA. The undertaking is valued at around PLN 15.4 billion (roughly EUR 3.6 billion), and its schedule is today one of the tightest in European shipbuilding: the lead ship, ORP Wicher, is due to be launched in 2026 and enter service in 2029; ORP Burza (keel laid in December 2025) in 2030; and ORP Huragan, whose construction was inaugurated with steel-cutting in late April 2026, will close the programme by the end of 2031.

What matters for the entire Pomeranian supply chain is that the project is dispersed by design. PGZ Stocznia Wojenna acts as prime contractor and integrator, but the production of individual hull modules is farmed out to specialist yards - the bow block of the first frigate was built by Gdynia's CRIST, while the stern block of Burza is being constructed by Stocznia Remontowa Nauta. For Nauta, hitherto associated mainly with repairs and modernisations, this is a step up to an entirely new level - from overhauls to building modern warships from the ground up. Exactly this model - a division of tasks among specialist partners - is what the Forum is now offering to hundreds more companies.

Nor does Miecznik exhaust the group's maritime portfolio in Pomerania. PGZ Stocznia Wojenna is a partner in the Kormoran II minehunter programme (another unit, ORP Czajka, was launched in December 2025) and is also building a rescue vessel under the Ratownik programme, worth more than PLN 1 billion. Each of these projects means dozens of sub-assemblies, services and components that someone has to supply - and it is precisely those "someones" the Gdynia Forum was aimed at.

A deal with the Pomeranian Special Economic Zone

The most tangible outcome of the meeting is the cooperation agreement signed during the Forum with the Pomeranian Special Economic Zone (PSSE). The document opens new avenues for joint work on developing the domestic defence sector, and its rationale is simple: to combine what PGZ offers (contracts, a supply chain, certification) with the tools the zone has at its disposal (reliefs and support for new investment).

The PSSE supports companies pursuing new investments by offering corporate-income-tax exemptions under the Polish Investment Zone - and defence-sector firms expanding production, infrastructure, new technologies and manufacturing capacity can also draw on this mechanism. The partnership is meant to create conditions for new investment, develop the domestic supply chain and strengthen the potential of Polish firms. Joint activities will also cover areas tied to innovation, dual-use technologies and the build-up of production and technological capabilities important to national security.

For Pomeranian entrepreneurs it is a practical hint: a company wanting both to enter defence cooperation and to expand its plant can now do so in a single, synchronised move - with a contract from the group on one side and an investment relief from the zone on the other.

SAFE: the financial backbone of the whole operation

None of this activity is happening in a vacuum. The backdrop to the regional Forums is the loan agreement under the EU's SAFE instrument (a mechanism for financing defence spending), signed in Warsaw on 8 May 2026. Poland - the first and largest beneficiary state among the programme's participants - is set to receive up to EUR 43.7 billion, or more than PLN 180 billion, with the declared intention that roughly 89 per cent of those funds will flow to the Polish defence industry and the firms cooperating with it.

It is precisely this scale that explains why PGZ is touring the country so intensively in search of subcontractors. The group itself commands significant capabilities, but the pace and volume of orders exceed what any single entity, however large, can manage. A supplier network thus ceases to be a matter of efficiency and becomes a condition for keeping to schedule - and it is this logic that PGZ translates into the language of regional meetings with business.

Szczecin: West Pomerania reports ready

Pomerania was not the only coastal region to step up in June. A week before Gdynia, on 1 June, Szczecin hosted the 4th Regional Defence Industry Forum, which drew around 200 companies from the West Pomeranian voivodeship. Both "seaside" editions of the series - western and eastern - therefore attracted a comparable number of entrepreneurs, even though each rests on a different industrial base.

The particularity of West Pomerania is that PGZ has no production plants of its own on this territory. That does not mean the region is new to the group - quite the opposite. Almost 300 cooperating companies from West Pomerania already work with group entities across Poland, primarily with plants in the Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) region. That is precisely why the Szczecin Forum brought together, alongside PGZ S.A. and the group's real-estate company Gryf Nieruchomości, representatives of the Poznań-based works: H. Cegielski Poznań, the Military Motor Works (Wojskowe Zakłady Motoryzacyjne) and Stomil Poznań. It shows that defence cooperation knows no administrative borders - a firm from Szczecin or Koszalin can today supply components to a factory several hundred kilometres away, provided it meets the quality and security requirements.

The meeting itself ran along the same lines as the Gdynia event. After a presentation session covering, among other things, security-certification rules, current needs and the terms of cooperation with PGZ, dozens of one-on-one business talks followed with entrepreneurs interested in entering the supply chain. It is exactly this format - concrete "table" conversations rather than general declarations - that is the hallmark of the entire series.

The Szczecin edition also carried a particular, symbolic weight: it was the first Forum staged after the first SAFE-programme agreements had been signed.

And it was here that words were spoken which capture well the moment in which the Polish defence industry now finds itself.

- This meeting has a symbolic dimension - it is the first Forum since the SAFE agreements were signed. Never before has such a vast sum been earmarked for modernising the Polish Armed Forces in so short a time. That makes cooperation between the state and private defence industries all the more important, so that the modern equipment ordered arrives on time and strengthens our security, said Stanisław Wziątek, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of National Defence.

The philosophy of supply-chain building was set out most fully by Adam Leszkiewicz, President of PGZ S.A. "As the largest state-owned company in the defence sector and the integrator of the country's potential, the Polish Armaments Group commands significant capabilities - yet the scale and pace of orders, including programmes such as SAFE, demand a broad, efficiently operating network of subcontractors. That is why we are actively building and developing a supply chain based on cooperation with private entities - contractors, suppliers and industrial partners. Only by deepening this cooperation will we be able to deliver key contracts on time and effectively strengthen the security of the state, while at the same time putting the idea of local content into practice," he stressed.

There is also a base that already exists today. Beyond the close to half a thousand firms that only just registered their interest in cooperating at the two June Forums, almost 900 companies from Pomerania alone and nearly 300 from West Pomerania are already cooperating with group entities. The total scale of the coastal business community's involvement in the defence supply chain therefore already runs into the thousands of entities - and this is even before SAFE orders are fully under way. It shows that the Polish coast, associated above all with the maritime economy, ports and shipyards, is becoming one of the key bases for the national defence industry.

What it means for companies - and for the maritime economy

For a business in the Tri-City area and beyond, the Forum's message is unambiguous: the door to the defence supply chain is open wider than ever, and the key to it is security certification and a readiness for long-term, standardised cooperation. PGZ currently works with close to 12,000 entities across Poland, supplying components and solutions for a very broad product portfolio - from individual soldier weapons and equipment, through communications, optoelectronics, ammunition, radar, artillery and air-defence systems, all the way to naval shipbuilding for navies. The group brings together nearly 70 companies and is one of the largest defence concerns in Central Europe.

For the Pomeranian maritime economy this means something more than the odd order. Every "Miecznik" frigate, every minehunter, every rescue vessel translates into years of work for shipyards, metalworking plants and suppliers of electronics, automation, cabling, fittings and services - in other words, for the industrial fabric the Tri-City has been building for decades. If the pledges to keep most of the order value in the country are honoured, the regional Forums may prove to be the moment when the Pomeranian shipbuilding industry redefined its role - no longer as a repair base, but as a full-fledged builder of modern warships and their components.

What's next. Gdynia and Szczecin are not the end of the road. The cycle of Regional Forums of the Polish Defence Industry, run under the "Polish Industry for Security" banner, comprises ten meetings in industrial centres across Poland. The next ones will be held on 22 June in Łódź and 29 June in Kalisz, with further cities announced on a rolling basis. Participation is free of charge, but in view of the limited number of places, prior registration via the organiser's website is required.

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Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa Regionalne Forum Przemysłu Zbrojeniowego program SAFE łańcuch dostaw przemysłu obronnego PGZ Stocznia Wojenna

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