The Philippines is in talks to buy anti-ship missiles BrahMos from India

By Boyko Nikolov On May 21, 2020

NEW DELHI, (BM) – According to Livemint.com, citing the Indian ambassador, India and the Philippines are negotiating the purchase of a number of defense platforms from India, including BrahMos missiles, but they are being hindered by restrictions adopted in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, learned BulgarianMilitary.com.

Once the restrictions on COVID-19 are lifted, the joint intergovernmental committee will continue its work to agree on the terms of the contract, the signing of which is expected by the end of the year.

Recall that the Minister of Defense of the Philippines, Dolphin Lorenzana, confirmed the decision to purchase BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missiles in December 2019. The signing of a contract at the intergovernmental level for the purchase of two BraMos anti-ship missiles for the Philippine Coast Guard was scheduled for the first and second quarter of 2020. Each battery will include three mobile launchers with two or three missiles each. Extensive system tests have already been completed.

As expected, the first new missile systems will go into service with the 1st Land-based Missile System Battery – 1LBMS Btry, which was formed in October 2019 at Fort Magsaysay. According to the Hindustan Times, the unit’s personnel will be trained and all necessary equipment will be acquired by 2024.

New Delhi invited Manila to provide a credit line in the amount of $ 100 million to finance the purchase. However, the Philippine authorities were also exploring the possibility of acquiring missiles in two stages at their own expense, which could be allocated from the fiscal 2020 budget.

As TsAMTO has already reported, the coastal missile system based on the BraMos rocket is purchased by the Philippine Navy under the SBASMS (Shore-Based Anti-Ship Missile System) project, which is planned to be implemented at the second stage of the Philippine Armed Forces Modernization Program (Second Horizon) scheduled for 2018-2022.

Initially, according to the documents of the Second Horizon phase, as part of the SBASMS project, it was planned to purchase about 7 batteries of coastal mobile anti-ship missile systems with an estimated budget of 18.9 billion pesos ($ 354 million).

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BulgarianMilitary.com
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