Beja, Portugal, April 30, 2026 (Lusa) – Portugal’s Defence Minister, Nuno Melo, has said that the government is making “major steps” towards establishing a factory for the Brazilian aerospace giant Embraer in Beja, in the interior Alentejo region, for the production of Super Tucano military aircraft.
Speaking to journalists in Beja on Wednesday evening, he referred to the possibility of the local council hosting a factory that would manufacture the Super Tucano “from scratch, in partnership with Embraer, with whom we have a long-standing relationship regarding the production of KC-390 aircraft”.
“We will soon have new meetings with the company’s representatives in Brazil, and we are making great strides towards what I believe will be the realisation of this venture”, which “also shows that national defence can be a powerful instrument of social cohesion”, he said on the sidelines of a visit to the Ovibeja agricultural fair.
On 17 December 2025, at the premises of Portugal’s aeronautical maintenance company, OGMA, in the Lisbon region, the defence minister and the president of Embraer signed a letter of intent to open a Super Tucano aircraft factory in Beja, at a ceremony marking the delivery of the first five A-29N Super Tucano aircraft to the Portuguese Air Force, out of a total order of 12 expected over the next two years.
Standing alongside the mayor of Beja, Nuno Melo said that Embraer is a company with cutting-edge technology and that the factory would create highly skilled, better-paid jobs, helping to retain young people in the interior region, reinforcing Portugal's growing aerospace cluster.
“This company has an engineering centre in Lisbon and a stake in OGMA; as I mentioned, the KC-390 is largely manufactured in Portugal,” he said.
“Beja could and should be the destination for this company, which will produce military aircraft from scratch in Portugal,” he added.
When asked about the possible timeline for this investment, he said that “the expectation is that the project will be finalised by the end of 2026, after which infrastructure works will begin on the building identified at the Beja military base, so that production can then begin”.
Lusa asked him to clarify whether the factory would be located within Beja’s No. 11 Air Base (BA11) or on adjacent land at the civilian terminal (Beja Airport), but Melo declined to specify, saying that he would leave that for a later date, as he did not wish to pre-empt matters that also involved technical considerations.
“It will be within the perimeter of the Beja Base, next to what were once facilities intended for aircraft production, which never came to fruition,” he said.
Melo also revealed that the investment, should figures be disclosed, would be business-oriented and self-sustaining, saying that this approach would need minimal spending on infrastructure adaptation, ensuring that the project becomes profitable without requiring specific European subsidies.
The Super Tucano is also "a type of aircraft that is increasingly in demand in high-intensity environments, including with built-in anti-drone technologies, which are becoming increasingly relevant today,” he said, adding that it is a versatile and modern aircraft, and that orders have been secured for when the factory becomes operational.
RRL/MYAL // AYLS
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