"We are talking about 20 investment projects with a nominal value of 423.6 million dollars which the Israeli company has promised to realise over the next 10 years," Poland's Deputy Economy Minister Jacek Piechota told a news conference.

The projects include a technology transfer of Spike missiles to Poland's Mesco arms factory in the southern town of Skarzysko-Kamienna, where the weapon will be manufactured under Israeli licence.

Other investments will be in tourism, food, information technology, while there will also be orders for boats, tractors and equipment for the automobile industry.

Under a previous deal worth 1.4 billion zloty (365 million dollars, 284 million euros) signed on December 29, Rafael is to supply nearly 2,700 Spike missiles and also 264 missile launchers to Warsaw between this year and 2013.

A member of NATO since 1999, Poland has been making intense efforts to modernise its armed forces, which have been hampered by material and structure inherited from the decades of Soviet rule.

Over the past two years it has spent billions of dollars upgrading its military, buying 48 US Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter planes, 980 Finnish AMV Patria transporters and eight personnel carriers from Spain's CASA.

WAR.WIRE