By Staff Correspondent
EDGE, one of the leading defence groups in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Indian state-owned aerospace and defence company Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) at the International Defense Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi. The MoU will focus on exploring areas of cooperation, including the joint design and development of missile systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Additionally, the two companies will examine utilising HAL’s small gas turbine engines on EDGE’s guided weapons, as well as EDGE’s GPS jamming and spoofing equipment on HAL’s platforms. Both parties also plan to cooperate on mission computers, training programs, and additive manufacturing of metallic parts at world-class facilities in the UAE and India.
The MoU was signed during IDEX, which is considered one of the world’s largest tri-service defence exhibitions. Indian envoy to the UAE, Sunjay Sudhir, visited the event to showcase India’s defence capabilities. In addition to the EDGE and HAL partnership, other companies have signed agreements at the ongoing defence exhibition. ICOMM, a group company of Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL), signed a deal with EDGE entity CARACAL for the first-ever Transfer of Technology (ToT) in defence articles.
Under the deal, ICOMM will manufacture CARACAL’s complete line of small arms for the Indian market as part of the ‘Make in India’ and Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiatives.
Last week, Reuters reported that UAE signed defence deals worth $2.22 billion at IDEX, with EDGE winning the largest deal for its subsidiary Halcon to supply Desert Sting P5 systems to the Tawazun Council. Another EDGE subsidiary, ADASI, clinched a deal for its Shadow system.
EDGE has clients across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe; its book value last year was approximately $5 billion.
