New Delhi, February 19
South Africa today offered to have a joint partnership with India in manufacturing and marketing artillery and integrated ballistic systems, especially for the long-delayed mounted 155 mm Howitzer guns.
“The partnership will encompass joint building and joint marketing of T5-2000 and G5-2000 truck-mounted gun systems in 155 mm 52-calibre,” South African Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe told reporters here.
Pretoria also suggested the holding of joint naval exercises with India and work on making Indian Ocean a “zone of peace”, the country’s Defence Minister Mosioua Lekota said at the joint press conference.
Besides Howitzers, the South African Ministers disclosed that Pretoria was the first country to enter into a joint venture with the Ordnance Factories Board for providing state-of-art manufacturing technology for the production of integrated systems at Nalanda in Bihar.
Describing Nalanda as a “turnkey” project, Lekota did not elaborate on whether Pretoria had taken equity stake in the new ordnance unit. He said South Africa was also ready to offer India unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), early warning systems and anti-mine armoured vehicles which were currently in use in counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir.
