Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) and the General Authority for Defence Development (GADD) have announced the launch of two programmes worth $177.03 million to boost the localisation of defence development in the kingdom, the Saudi state news agency said.
The programmes will run for four years and “represent the first batch of GADD’s incentives programmes for the sector,” SPA news agency said.
Under these new programmes, SAMI will form partnerships with various national development centres and Saudi universities to help design and eventually industrialize the outcomes of their defence development activities and meet military and security entities’ needs
The two programmes will include grants provided by GADD for research in targeted areas and building special facilities to support related technology development.
Under these new programs, SAMI will form partnerships with various national development centres and Saudi universities to help design and eventually industrialise the outcomes of their defence development activities and meet military and security entities’ needs.
“The authority seeks to steer defence development activities in national development centre’s and universities toward the requirements of the defence and security end users,” said Dr. Faleh Al-Sulaiman, Governor of GADD,
Furthermore, the Governor emphasized the need for investing in national universities that hold qualified personnel to aid local defence development in the Kingdom.
“This support aims to utilize national capabilities to locally develop various defence systems such as Software Defined Radio (SDR) systems and Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems for Anti-UAV Defence systems,” said Dr. Hatim Behairy, Assistant for Technology Planning at GADD.
The CEO of SAMI, Walid Abukhaled said that this support shows the pioneering role SAMI plays in localising the defence industry, adding that the results of these programmes will bear fruit in the coming four years and that these efforts align with Saudi Vision 2030’s goal of localizing 50% of defence spending by 2030.
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