NEW DELHI: A missile with no foreign buyer until 2022 now has two contracted customers, a third in the pipeline and at least half a dozen countries in the queue
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A missile with no foreign buyer until 2022 now has two contracted customers, a third in the pipeline and at least half a dozen countries in the queue.
The BrahMos, the only supersonic cruise missile available for export anywhere in the world, has emerged as the flagship of India’s defence export push, with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) inked with Indonesia on Tuesday marking the latest step in a rapidly expanding footprint.
The Philippines opened the account with a $375-million contract for shore-based anti-ship missile batteries in 2022 and has since taken deliveries. Vietnam came next, with Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh confirming at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier this year that the deal, estimated at around $629 million, had “already been signed, probably not publicly announced”.
Indonesia is now set to become the third customer. The newly signed MoU between BrahMos Aerospace and the Indonesian defence ministry provides the overarching framework for phased procurement of two batteries estimated at around $200 million, with formal contracts to follow, sources in the defence establishment said.
India is now negotiating with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for both BrahMos and the Akashteer air defence command and control system, with Abu Dhabi keen to cut dependence on Western suppliers after the recent Iran conflict, even as the Saudi-Pakistan mutual defence pact reshapes strategic equations in the Gulf. In a telling turn,
Russia, its missile stocks depleted by the Ukraine war, is also learnt to be considering induction of BrahMos on its own naval platforms.
The Russian factor
Moscow’s concurrence is required for every third-country sale, which Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov conveyed for the Vietnam and Indonesia deals during talks with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Dec 2024.
BrahMos Aerospace, in turn, is working to cut costs by nearly 20 per cent over the next two years, while developing the lighter 1.2-tonne BrahMos-NG (Next Generation) for integration on a wider range of platforms.