Yugoimport SDPR

Yugoimport SDPR was created in 1949 by decree of the Yugoslav government and has outlasted the state that made it. Today it is fully owned by the Republic of Serbia and holds two jobs at once. It is the sole channel through which the Serbian government trades armaments and defence equipment abroad, and it is also a manufacturer in its own right through a set of production subsidiaries including Borbeni Slozeni Sistemi, the Utva Aviation Industry and Belom, spread across several Serbian towns. The trading company itself is small, with around 350 staff, but the industrial base behind it is considerably larger.

Artillery is what the company is best known for. The Nora B-52 is a 155mm wheeled self-propelled gun-howitzer designed with the Military Technical Institute in Belgrade, and it has gone through a long series of variants including the M21, the NG new generation model and the MGS-25 Aleksandar, a lighter roughly 25-tonne version with a six-round-per-minute rate of fire and reach out to 56 kilometres with specialised ammunition. Nora has sold better abroad than most European artillery, with users in Bangladesh, Cyprus, Kenya, Myanmar and Serbia and trials or orders involving Algeria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Pakistan and the UAE. Alongside it sits Tamnava, a multi-calibre self-propelled rocket launcher, and a wider rocket artillery range covering 107mm, 122mm, 128mm and 262mm calibres plus a 400mm inertial and satellite guided missile.

Armoured vehicles are the other main land line. The Lazar family runs to eight-by-eight configurations of up to 28 tonnes, with the Lazar 3 in serial production since 2020 as a personnel carrier and the Lazar 3M as an infantry fighting vehicle, in service with Serbia and ordered by Turkmenistan, with earlier Lazar 2 units delivered to Pakistan. Milos and Milos 2 are smaller four-by-four multirole vehicles. The range also includes six-by-six mine-protected vehicles and a set of transport and multipurpose trucks.

Aerospace work runs through Utva. The Lasta 95 is a tandem two-seat metal-airframe basic trainer that flew in its modernised form in 2009 and serves with the Serbian and Iraqi air forces. The company also offers reconnaissance and armed drones including the Pegaz, turbojet engines for unmanned aircraft, unguided rockets, aerial bombs, gun pods and parachutes, with guided bombs and vertical take-off aircraft listed as in development.

The naval line is modest and focused on fast multi-role combat boats of twelve and 22 metres to the company's own design, along with weapons, optoelectronics and fire control systems for them, and the Premax 39 river patrol boat. Guided weapons include the Nova anti-tank missile with optoelectronic guidance and data link out to 25 kilometres, and modernisation packages for legacy Malyutka missiles and P-18 series early warning radars.

Ammunition is a large and often overlooked part of the business, spanning small arms, medium calibre from 20mm to 57mm, mortar bombs, drone-dropped munitions, tank rounds in 100mm and 125mm, artillery shells from 105mm to 155mm, demolition charges, mines, fuses, primers, propellants and explosives. Technology transfer and licensed production are offered as a service, and Serbian licences have gone to Iraq, Azerbaijan, India and Algeria.