The "Edge" group for military industries, owned by the UAE, signed an agreement with the Israeli company "IAI" for the aerospace industry, Thursday, to design unmanned military and commercial ships (march).
The two companies said in a joint statement, published by Reuters, that the 17M unmanned ships will be designed to carry out security operations, such as demining and reconnaissance.
The UAE, one of the largest buyers of arms in the world, is developing the military industry locally, such as drones and guided missiles, to reduce its dependence on expensive exports, in an area often rocked by crises, according to AFP.
The Edge group was set up two years ago to spearhead these efforts and now includes 25 Emirati arms manufacturers, marking the "maturity of the defense industry", the head of one of the group's five divisions, Khaled al-Buraiki, told AFP.
Edge quickly climbed to become one of the world's 25 largest defense manufacturers last year, with revenues of more than $5 billion, according to the International Peace Research Institute "SIPRI" in Stockholm.
"We realized that we had to bring our capabilities together under one roof to focus on what we wanted to manufacture in the country, and now we can do that on a global level as well," Al-Buraiki said. "We have an emerging group mentality, but with tremendous potential," he continued.
The group employs 13,000 people "from all over the world" and is recruiting more Emiratis, mainly through agreements with universities in the UAE or abroad.
At the Dubai Airshow, which started last Sunday, the huge "EDGE" pavilion displays a range of products made in the UAE, such as guided missiles and cybersecurity systems.
The wing seeks to attract contracts that are almost exclusively in favor of the UAE armed forces, especially for the maintenance of military aircraft for the Air Force (approximately $4 billion) or the provision of guided munitions ($880 million).
The oil-rich UAE, like its neighbors Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is among the world's largest arms importers and is seeking to diversify its economy.
Al-Buraiki said, "We already have 20 products that were manufactured under the "Made in the UAE" initiative, and 13 products were announced this year," adding: "We aspire to work within national capabilities (only), but we do not have a sufficient degree of maturity to dispense with About Partners" after.
The signing of the normalization agreement with Israel last year opened new opportunities for the group to get closer to the military manufacturers there, who are present in large numbers for the first time at the Dubai Air Show.
"We discuss with them and sign contracts, we follow the policy of our government," Al-Buraiki said.
In this context, the giant Israeli company Elbit Systems in the field of armaments, which designs unmanned aircraft, announced on Sunday the creation of a subsidiary company in the UAE, with the aim in particular of "transferring technologies to local partners."
EDGE, which has secured nearly two dozen export contracts for services or ammunition, hopes to establish itself on the international stage.
The UAE and Israel established diplomatic relations last year within the framework of the "Abraham Accords" mediated by the United States.
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