Saudi Arabian Military Industries (Sami), a wholly-owned Public Investment Fund (PIF) company, revealed its inaugural participation at the Armed Forces Exhibition for Diversity of Requirements and Capabilities (AFED), being held in Saudi Arabia.

Sami participated as a strategic partner of the event, which will take place from February 26 to March 3, at the Riyadh International Convention & Exhibition Center.

Sami provides a range of military products and services that currently span four ?business divisions, namely aeronautics, land systems, weapons and missiles, and defence electronics, and has already signed several agreements within its first year of operations with internationally renowned defence companies, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics, in order to support its development and growth.

AFED 2018 is being held under the patronage of King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Prime Minister and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the directives of HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, and chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs.

Dr Andreas Schwer, chief executive officer, Sami, said: “Saudi Arabia is one of the top five countries in the world in terms of military spends, and the establishment of Sami was an ambitious yet highly critical step as part of the country’s strategy to localise and globalise its military manufacturing industry.”

“We aim to achieve this goal by building strong local capabilities in the military industries field, internalising global trends and developments, combining the latest technologies with the best national talent, increasing exports, and bringing foreign investment into the kingdom’s military industries sector,” he added.

“We believe that event will offer the right opportunity to not just understand the kingdom’s military manufacturing requirements, but also to meet with various like-minded organizations and defence companies from across the world,” he said.

“We anticipate that our participation will open up doors to several collaboration discussions and future long-term partnerships, laying the cornerstone for us to enable the achievement of the Saudi Vision 2030 by localising 50 per cent of government military spending, and become one of the top 25 military ?industries companies in the world,” Schwer concluded.

With a strategic framework in place, Sami aims to contribute around SR14 billion ($3.73 billion) ?directly to Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product (GDP)?, increase the value of national exports by about SR5 billion ($1.33 billion), invest over SR6 billion ($1.59 billion) ?for ?research and development, and create over 40,000 direct ?jobs locally, by the year 2030.

Sami also works on increasing local content and building a sustainable and thriving military industries sector in Saudi Arabia were the main reasons behind establishing Sami. AFED 2018 is a high-level event bringing together key industry stakeholders in the military field.

The exhibition stand leverages technological innovations to highlight the company’s genesis, strategic vision, operational competencies and capabilities, and product and service portfolio, it stated. – TradeArabia News Service