BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO on Wednesday said its procurement arm would support a group of member countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain, with a contract to buy up to 1,000 Patriot air defence missiles.

       The agency awarded a production and delivery contract to COMLOG, a joint venture between Raytheon and MBDA, the transatlantic military alliance said in a statement, adding that European production of the missiles would be expanded.

       "The consolidated multinational procurement, in the spirit of the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), offers economies of scale and supports the expansion of production capacity for new GEM-T missiles to meet increasing demand", NATO said in a statement.

       (Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)