OSLO, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia has signed a contract worth 77 million U.S. dollars to buy a medium-range air defence system from Norway's Kongsberg Gruppen ASA, the company said on Tuesday.
The contract, signed by the partially state-owned company and the Indonesian ministry of defence, includes delivery of a complete Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS), the company said in a statement.
It comprises the system's command posts, radars, launchers, radios and integration as well as training and logistics support, while AMRAAMs, or Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, will be provided in a separate government-to-government agreement between Indonesia and the United States.
"We are very pleased that Indonesia, as the first nation in its region, chooses NASAMS for its homeland defence," Eirik Lie, president of the Norwegian company's Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace unit, was quoted as saying in the statement.
"The continuous technical evolution and addition of users confirms that NASAMS is the most modern and advanced air defense system in the world," he said.
Several countries have chosen NASAMS, including Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, the United States, Spain, Oman, Lithuania and now also Indonesia, according to the company's statement.
The NASAMS, launched in the late 1990s by Kongsberg in partnership with major U.S. defense contractor Raytheon, is "a world leading solution with unique capabilities to combat modern airborne threats, as well as having the ability to integrate with a variety of different sensors and weapons," the Norwegian company said.
According to Norway's online business newspaper E24, NASAMS is one of the major export successes of the Norwegian defense industry and is used, among other things, to protect critical infrastructure in Washington DC.
The process of landing sales to Indonesia has been going on for several years, Lie told E24.
Deliveries will start in two to three years, but Lie did not specify when the installation will be complete, E24 reported.
