Malaysia, Indonesia & Vietnam could get BRAHMOS

Brahmos Aerospace ties up with Rosoboronexport State Corp

Vinay Shukla Moscow, April 7 (PTI) Brahmos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian Joint Venture has tied up with Russia’s Rosoboronexport State Corporation to globally market its new generation supersonic cruise missiles for naval and air platforms. The Plan on joint export promotion of BrahMos missile systems was inked by Andrey Beliyaninov – Director General of Rosoboronexport, Dr Herbert Yefremov – Director General of NPO Mashinostroyeniya and Dr A Sivathanu Pillai – CEO and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace. It visualises undertaking of joint marketing activities, aimed at promotion of ‘BrahMos’ missile systems of ship-born and air-born applications to foreign markets, Rosoboronexport said in a statement. Under an intergovernmental agreement signed in 1998, India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s premier nuclear missile designer and producer NPO Mashnistroyeniya floated the USD 250 Million joint venture in India, in which DRDO has 50.5 per cent equity. “There is a significant interest in the world in BrahMos cruise missiles and many countries have already made inquiries. However, the decision to sell them to a certain country has to be made jointly by the governments of India and Russia,” Dr Pillai told PTI. Although Dr Pillai declined to identify the nations which could be possible buyers of BrahMos missiles, Russian expert Dr Alexander Vaskin believes that Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam could get these missiles as “friendly countries”. BrahMos cruise missiles, which are to be inducted by the Indian navy beginning from next year, have been on display in several international arms exhibitions including in Sydney, Singapore and Abu Dhabi and every where potential buyers have been showing keen interest in them. “As of today and in a decade to come BrahMos has no match in the world in its class. It is a smart weapon system, you only need to feed the co-ordinates of the target, and it hits precisely overcoming enemy electronic counter-measures. It is a versatile tactical cruise missile of the range of 290 km and can be fired from ships, submarines, land-based mobile launchers, silos and aircraft,” Dr Pillai said. The BrahMos supersonic missile capable of cruising at the altitude ranging from 10 metres to 10 kilometres flies to its target at the speed of Mach 2.8 – almost three times faster than sound, leaving no time for the adversary to react. According to Russian experts, BrahMos missile is three times faster than the highly publicised US Tomahawk cruise missile and two missiles are enough to sink an enemy aircraft carrier. (THROUGH ASIA PULSE)
[Press Trust of India]

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