Lockheed Martin seeks to have missiles produced by Rheinmetall, WiWo reports

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin is seeking to have German peer Rheinmetall manufacture missiles including ATACMS and Hellfire types in Germany, business magazine WirtschaftsWoche cited a Lockheed executive as saying.

"We are already actively discussing additional manufacturing - including for ATACMS and Hellfire missiles," Lockheed's Europe head Dennis Goege told WirtschaftsWoche, adding that it would take place at Rheinmetall's expanding Unterluess site in northern Germany.

The two companies said in April they would expand their cooperation beyond a memorandum of understanding signed in 2024, with the U.S. group providing missile and rocket technology and Rheinmetall manufacturing and selling missiles in Europe.

Goege also told the magazine that the final list of missiles had yet to be determined.

Rheinmetall, which this year started making fuselage parts for Lockheed's F-35 fighter jets, was not immediately available for comment.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is scheduled to visit the Unterluess site later on Wednesday, together with German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, to attend the opening of an artillery production line.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, editing by Thomas Seythal)