Turkey to spend $600 mln on assault boats
Burak BEKDİL Hürriyet Daily News
Defense procurement officials expect a number of local shipyards are expected to race for Turkey’s $600-million worth assault boat purchase program. The design and manufacturing of the boats will be local, they have said.
Turkey is expected to spend more than half a billion dollars on a batch of new assault boats, defense sources have said.Turkey’s defense procurement authorities recently launched a new competition for the acquisition of 10 new assault boats, a program dubbed the “Turkish-type assault boat.”
Officials and defense industry sources agree that the proposed program would cost Turkey nearly $600 million.
Defense procurement officials said an official request for information for the contract was issued at the end of July. “This will be a major contest for mostly local shipyards but there will be a foreign contest too,” one official said. “The design and manufacturing will be local, hence the tag ‘Turkish-type assault boat.’”
Industry sources expect competition among local shipyards RMK Marine, Yonca-Onuk, Dearsan and Istanbul Shipyards.
The program will be managed by STM, a government-owned defense industry engineering and consultation company. STM, under authorization from the procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) had carried out feasibility studies for the assault boat program between 2008 and 2010.
Under the plan, local shipyards will compete for the design and manufacturing work. State-owned defense companies Aselsan and Havelsan will compete for the warfare system and state-owned missile maker Roketsan will produce the weapons systems.
Foreign companies will be asked to bid for main propulsion and steering systems. The deadline to reply to the request for information is Sept. 13, 2013.
Tender for local warship to be remade
ANKARA / ISTANBUL
A tender for Turkey’s national warship program (MİLGEM) will reportedly be rearranged following a report by the prime ministry’s inspection office stating that the original tender’s result was not in the public interest, local daily Star reported yesterday. Seven companies, including Koç Holding’s RMK Marine, the winner of the first tender, have been called upon to offer their prices.
However, officials from the Undersecretaries for the Defense Industry declined to comment to the Daily News on the issue.
The Defense Industry Executive Committee particularly called upon two companies, RMK Marine and Dearsan, to take part in the tender, after finding that they had already applied for another prominent shipyard in Istanbul at the beginning of the year. RMK Marine was selected in January by the committee to build six follow-on Milgem-class corvettes.
Construction of the first Milgem project ship, the Heybeliada, was completed in 2008, while the second ship, the Büyükada, is still under way.