 A license to produce the AR-18/180 was then sold to Howa Machinery Co., of Japan, and the rifle was produced from 1970 until 1974, when new controls on export of military arms by the Japanese government forced the company to cease all small arms production.Between 1975 and 1978, there was a brief pause in production as ArmaLite was finalizing an agreement with Sterling Armaments Company to produce the rifle under license.From 1979 until 1985, the Sterling Armaments Company of Dagenham, Essex, in the United Kingdom produced the AR-18 and AR-180.In 1983, ArmaLite was sold to Eslico Tool & Manufacturing of the Philipines, who planned to pitch the AR-18 as a replacement for the license-produced M16A1 then in service with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.