Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) and South Africa’s Paramount Group have signed a collaboration agreement as part of the Kingdom’s efforts to develop its own domestic defense industry, the two companies said on Wednesday.
Under the deal, SAMI and Paramount, a private company, would collaborate on the development of technologies and capabilities across the land, sea and air domains, as well as system integration.
“This will contribute significantly to further enhancing the capability of Saudi Armed Forces and increasing local content, in addition to creating new job opportunities and training for Saudi youths to increase their contribution and raise their role in this vital industry in particular and the national economy in general,” SAMI CEO Andreas Schwer said in the statement.
“The collaboration between SAMI and Paramount Group will play a large part in helping to achieve the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030,” he added.
“Paramount Group has an established track record of working in partnership with customer countries, helping to create local defense industrial capabilities through technology and skills transfer. We believe there are many synergies between our companies that can be leveraged to build the defense industrial capability that Saudi requires,” he stated.
“Saudi Arabia is important to Paramount Group as much of the technology that we have created over the years has been developed with the Middle East in mind,” Paramount chairman Ivor Ichikowitz said.
