Saudi inks deal for five Spain-built warships

riyadh — Saudi Arabia’s stateowned defence company has forged a deal with Spanish shipbuilder Navantia for a joint venture to build five warships, state media said on Thursday.

The agreement with Saudi Arabian Military Industries (Sami) for the design and construction of five Avante 2200 corvettes warships will start this autumn, with the last unit to be delivered by 2022, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The agreement appears part of a framework agreed in April during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Spain for Navantia to provide warships to the Gulf state for around $2.3 billion.

Sami says it aims to become a major player in the global defence industry and localise more than half of the kingdom’s military spending by 2030.

Under Prince Mohammed’s “Vision 2030”, a package of economic and social reforms aimed at reducing dependence on oil exports, Riyadh plans to spend 32 billion euros in transportation infrastructure in the next decade.

Spanish firms have already won two major infrastructure contracts in Saudi Arabia in recent years.

A Spanish consortium, Al Shoula, is building a high-speed railway across the desert to link the holy cities of Makkah and Madina while Spanish construction group FCC leads one of three consortia building a rapid transit system in the Saudi capital. —