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Business opportunities

  1. NATO and business. To achieve its mission, NATO requires capabilities that are mainly developed by industry and that are essential for achieving the objectives defined in the defense planning process. To this end, the Alliance has over time strengthened its relations with the industrial sector, most recently through the Strategy for Industry-NATO Cooperation (SYNC), aimed at enhancing and streamlining cooperation and the sharing of capability requirements. The NATO Front Door for Industry (NFDI) fits into this framework. It is a single platform that will gather information on collaboration opportunities and host a portal dedicated to all NATO tenders.

    At the non-contractual and pre-competitive level, NATO interacts with industry through the NATO Industrial Advisory Group (NIAG) and the NATO Industry Forum (which was held in Bucharest in 2025). Conferences, symposia, and seminars are also organized regularly. At the contractual level, relations with the industrial sector are primarily managed by NATO agencies and governed by internal procurement regulations.

    Also worth noting are the COI Cooperation Portal, designed to promote information exchange and collaboration among NATO, Allied nations, and industry, as well as recently developed initiatives launched at the 2026 Ankara Summit, such as the NATO Engine – which facilitates connections between innovative companies and firms with available production capacity- and NATO Drone Edge, which aims to facilitate the identification and acquisition of technological solutions for countering small drones.

  1. Activities in support of Italian companies by the Permanent Delegation of Italy to NATO.

– NATO bids.

While defense procurement is carried out by each member country – in Italy’s case the responsible entity is the Secretariat General of Defense/National Armaments Directorate through the competent Technical Directorates – NATO offers significant business opportunities to Italian companies in sectors related to its functioning. The acquisition of goods and services takes place through international bids published by Allied countries: for Italy, the entity responsible for the communication to companies is the Ministry of Industry and Made in Italy, through which interested companies can request to be registered in the List of Italian companies having the requirements to participate in NATO bids (Italian only).

Participation in these bids requires a specific knowledge of the regulation in force within the framework of NATO, which differs from both Italian and European regulations. In order to facilitate the approach of Italian companies to the NATO world, the Permanent Delegation of Italy, in addition to providing support in the different steps of the procedure, has prepared an ad hoc handbook (Italian only) intended to be an efficient working tool for a first contact with NATO bids.

Italian companies that are interested in the opportunities offered by NATO can contact the Commercial Office of the Permanent Delegation of Italy here: comm.natobruxelles@esteri.it.

 

– Meetings and informative events on collaboration opportunities with NATO.

Getting to know NATO. The Permanent Delegation of Italy periodically organises informative and educational meetings about procurement between interested Italian companies and NATO. These meetings aim at facilitating the contacts between Italian companies and NATO and at getting the companies acquainted with NATO procedures and requests.

The dates of the periodic meetings will be published on the website of the Permanent Delegation and interested companies are invited to confirm their attendance.

Informative seminars. In collaboration with the Permanent Delegation of Italy, the Italian Trade & Investment Agency (which promotes Italian companies abroad and supports their internationalisation) launched in 2023 a series of informative seminars addressed to companies about opportunities with NATO (and the EU) in sectors outside of the defence industry.

 

  1. Useful contacts:

Email address of the Commercial Office of the Permanent Delegation of Italy to NATO: comm.natobruxelles@esteri.it.

 

  1. e-Guide to NATO bids for companies

The digital version of the e-Guide to NATO bids for Italian companies, published by the Permanent Delegation of Italy to NATO, is available here (Italian only) and incorporates the new procurement procedures adopted by NATO in July 2025..

 

  1. Useful links: