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| BRP Tarlac launching (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Prashanth Parameswaran
The first locally-built strategic sealift vessel will be delivered to the Philippines in May.
Indonesia’s state-owned shipbuilder PT PAL unveiled a new vessel Monday which will be the first ever warship exported by the country’s domestic shipbuilding industry.
As I have written before, Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has been looking to boost the country’s domestic shipbuilding industry as part of a wider goal of revolutionizing the defense industry (See: “An Indonesian Defense Revolution Under Jokowi?”). The inaugural export of a locally-built warship to the Philippines, set to occur later this year, is a step in this direction.
According to the PT PAL’s director M. Firmansyah, the Strategic Sealift Vessel (SSV)-1, a Lloyd Register-class warship built entirely by PT PAL, will be delivered to the Philippine defense ministry in May 2016. It will be part of a contract PT PAL had secured back in 2014 worth $92 million from the Philippine government for the construction of two SSVs after winning an international tender process. The other SSV is expected to be delivered by mid-2017.
Read the full story at The Diplomat