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The agreement with Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) for the design and construction of five Avante 2200 corvettes warships will start this autumn, with the last unit to be delivered by 2022, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
Vast wealth and the promise of dramatic change make for cautious optimism concerning Saudi Arabia, the chief executive…
1705 Views | the publication reaches you by | Saudi Arabia TodayA coalition of NGOs including Amnesty International had urged Madrid not to go ahead with the deal because the corvettes could be used in Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has long been a major global arms importer — but some countries now refuse to sell weapons over the kingdom’s role in the conflict in Yemen, gripped by what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
But Spain’s loss-making shipbuilder Navantia appears to be banking heavily on the agreement, which has reportedly been under negotiation for years.
SAMI says it aims to become a major player in the global defence industry and localize more than half of the kingdom’s military spending by 2030.
The agreement announced on Thursday will generate up to 6,000 jobs for five years, including 1,100 direct jobs, SPA reported.
Under Prince Mohammad’s “Vision 2030”, a package of economic and social reforms aimed at reducing dependence on oil exports, Riyadh plans to spend 32 billion euros in transportation infrastructure in the next decade.
Spanish firms have already won two major infrastructure contracts in Saudi Arabia in recent years.
A Spanish consortium, al-Shoula, is building a high-speed railway across the desert to link the holy cities of Mecca and Medina while Spanish construction group FCC leads one of three consortia building a rapid transit system in the Saudi capital.
150 take part through Watani Al Emarat via the ‘Your City Needs You’ initiative Over 150 volunteers –…
1417 Views | the publication reaches you by | Saudi Arabia Today
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The Arab states of the Persian Gulf are the seven Arab states which border the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).This excludes the non-Arab state of Iran. All of these nations except Iraq are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
