After $2-bn Contract, Indian Navy Gives Another $630-mn Deal to Israeli Firm

Jerusalem: State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries said on Sunday it has won an additional, USD 630 million contract to supply air and defence missile systems for four ships of the Indian navy.

The contract will be jointly executed with the Indian government's Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), which serves as the main contractor in the project as part of 'Make in India' policy. This comes close on the heels of Israel's largest defence contract ever worth USD 2 billion to supply the Indian Army and Navy with missile defence systems.

IAI said the USD 630-million contract is for supplying Long Range Surface to Air Missile (LRSAM) systems.

The LRSAM is a joint development by IAI and India's Defence Research and Development Organisation. It comprises several key state-of-the-art elements, advanced phased-array radar, command-and-control system, launchers and missiles with advanced radio-frequency (RF) seekers.

The LRSAM was last week successfully tested in India as part of operational interception trial aboard Indian Navy ship "demonstrating again the system's operational capabilities in a representative scenario with genuine target", a statement from IAI said.

"All components of the weapon system have successfully met the goals set to them", the company said.

"The new contract adds to other deals signed in the last decade by IAI with India's defence forces, reinforcing IAI's global leadership position in air and missile defence systems. The inclusion of Indian governmental company BEL for the first time, is a step up in our relationship with the Indian industry as part of the 'Make in India' policy," IAI's president and CEO, Joseph Weiss, said.

"We take pride, along with our partners in India, in the great results of the trial conducted last week, which reestablishes the System's reliability and quality as well as its advanced technological capabilities," Boaz Levi, IAI's executive vice president and general manager of systems, Missiles and Space Group, said.

Israel last month closed a USD two billion defence deal with India, with IAI taking the lion's share of it with contracts worth USD 1.6 billion.