Software, drones and ammunition will be key priorities for Emirates Defence Industries Company (Edic) – the umbrella group for the country’s defence industry units – as it forges its long-term strategy early next year.
“By the first quarter of next year, we will be out with a strategy of how Edic is going to perform what the next stage of the evolution of the defence industry in Abu Dhabi will be,” Homaid Al Shemmari, the Edic chairman, said yesterday.
TheUAE incorporated its defence industry entities under Edic this year to create “synergies and cost effectiveness”.
Subsidiaries of Mubadala, Tawazun and Emirates Advanced Investment Group, including Al Taif Technical Services, Tawazun Dynamics and Global Aerospace Logistics, were incorporated under Edic starting in January.
Mr Shemmari added that Edic’s strategy would include the company’s plans for exports and technology transfer, along with areas that it wants to advance in and others that it wants to scale back.
Asked where Edic would be concentrating its efforts, Mr Shemmari said: “Software development is an area that we definitely want to go to. Light ammunition is another area. Also, heavy ammunition, vehicles and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] are all areas that we are interested in.”
He added that Edic is in the “finishing stage” of getting all the elements of the merged entities transferred.
“The valuation of all the companies is done,” he said. “We transferred nine companies from a legal perspective and there are another seven that we are in the process of finalising.”
Mr Shemmari said that by end of the year a total of 16 companies would be transferred under Edic with a “collective business plan for all of these companies”.
In recent years, Arabian Gulf nations, including the UAE, have started to take a more proactive role in building military capabilities.
UAE fighter jets this year were active participants in hitting ISIL targets in Iraq and Syria, and the Air Force has been involved in the conflict in Yemen.
Defence spending in the Middle East and North Africa is expected to hit US$150 billion this year up, from $148bn last year and $136bn in 2013, according to the defence consultancy IHS Jane’s.
selgazzar@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
