*RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s state-owned defence company has forged a deal withSpanish shipbuilder Navantia for a joint venture to build five warships,state media said Thursday.*
The agreement with Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) for the designand construction of five Avante 2200 corvettes warships will start thisautumn, with the last unit to be delivered by 2022, the official SaudiPress Agency reported.
The agreement appears part of a framework agreed in April during CrownPrince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Spain for Navantia to providewarships to the Gulf state for around two billion euros ($2.3 billion).
A coalition of NGOs including Amnesty International had urged Madrid not togo ahead with the deal because the corvettes could be used in SaudiArabia’s military campaign against Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has long been a major global arms importer — but somecountries now refuse to sell weapons over the kingdom’s role in theconflict in Yemen, gripped by what the UN calls the world’s worsthumanitarian crisis.
But Spain’s loss-making shipbuilder Navantia appears to be banking heavilyon the agreement, which has reportedly been under negotiation for years.
SAMI says it aims to become a major player in the global defence industryand localise more than half of the kingdom’s military spending by 2030.
The agreement announced on Thursday will generate up to 6,000 jobs for fiveyears, including 1,100 direct jobs, SPA reported.
Under Prince Mohammed’s “Vision 2030”, a package of economic and socialreforms aimed at reducing dependence on oil exports, Riyadh plans to spend32 billion euros in transportation infrastructure in the next decade.
Spanish firms have already won two major infrastructure contracts in SaudiArabia in recent years.
A Spanish consortium, Al-Shoula, is building a high-speed railway acrossthe desert to link the holy cities of Mecca and Medina while Spanishconstruction group FCC leads one of three consortia building a rapidtransit system in the Saudi capital. – APP/AFP