Naval Group agrees to continue negotiating LCS price: Mindef

KUALA LUMPUR – Naval Group, the French company supplying littoral combat ships (LCS) for the Royal Malaysian Navy, has agreed to continue negotiating prices with Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd (BNSSB).

In a statement today, the Defence Ministry said that the agreement was reached during a meeting held in France among representatives of the ministry, France’s Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) international directorate director Gaël Diaz De Tuesta, France’s Defence Ministry, and Naval Group.

DGA is a French government agency responsible for handling military procurement.

It said the French company is also committed to ensuring the full completion of the LCS within the timeframe stipulated by the Malaysian government.

“This is a significant and positive development and can further strengthen the efforts of all parties… to ensure that the LCS project can continue as best as possible in line with the recommendations of several stakeholders including the cabinet, Public Accounts Committee, and the Committee on Governance, Procurement and Finance Investigation.

“The mobilisation phase has also gone smoothly and all related parties have carried out their respective roles as best as possible...with this development, it is expected that all negotiations will be finalised by the end of December,” read the statement.

On October 2, caretaker defence minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the six-month mobilisation phase of the LCS project which began in June had gone smoothly and shown positive progress in line with stakeholders’ recommendations.

He said that following negotiations with 145 local vendors and 42 overseas original equipment manufacturers, BNSSB as the manufacturing company had received commitments involving equipment and systems to support BNSSB in continuing the LCS project. – Bernama, October 21, 2022