The company Nuctech has won a procurement from Swedavia, which will modernize the security control at Arlanda's terminal 5. A work that will be completed in 2023.
According to Aftonbladet, the contract must have been signed on Friday.
- They won because they submitted the best bid, says Annika Balazs, strategic procurement manager at Swedavia to Aftonbladet.
Sensitive information
Nuctech is a world-leading manufacturer of screening equipment for people, luggage, freight packages and vehicles.
According to the news agency AP, however, the company has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the country's military.
Something that has made critics worry that China can access sensitive information through the company.
Nuctech has been blacklisted in the US for precisely that reason, but in Europe it has succeeded better and is in place in 26 of 27 EU countries according to AP.
Among other things in several European ports and at several European airports.
"Not normal prices"
According to experts that AP has spoken to in a number of European countries, Nuctech has placed itself as low as 30-50 percent below competitors' bids in procurement.
Something that is possible thanks to the subsidies you get from the Chinese state.
- Nuctech makes bids that no one can match.
These are not normal prices, says Didi Kirsten Tatlow, author of the book "China's Quest for Foreign Technology", to AP.
- It is not a normal company.
Rather, they are part of a state development offensive.
Lars Nicander, senior adviser at the Swedish National Defense College, is also critical of Swedavia's choice of company.
- It sounds strange to choose this company when the same products have been blacklisted elsewhere.
It should be a warning bell.
We know that the Chinese state uses surveillance systems to vacuum the western world of information and personal data and often it is about backdoors in the systems that leak sensitive information back to China, he tells Aftonbladet.