REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SURABAYA -- State-owned ship building company PT PAL Indonesia started building a Watchtower Missile Destroyer frigate on Wednesday to meet the ministry of defense's order.
"To realize the production of the warship we steered the keel laying for the PKR fregate, today" the company's President Director M Firmansyah Arifin stated, while attending the keel laying ceremony at PT PAL Indonesia shipyard here in Surabaya, East Java.
He noted that the ship will be made complete with facilities and equipment including equipment for undersea war such as torpedoes and helicopter pad.
"The ship is also capable of dealing with air war with its air defense missiles," he confirmed.
The start of the production of the PKR frigate marked the company's commitment to realizing the contract between the ministry of defense and the Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding (DSNS).
"The shipbuilding project will also bring benefit to us through the DSNS transfer of technology program," he clarified.
On the occasion, Indonesian navy chief of staff Admiral Marsetio commented that the ship will also be capable of conducting an electronic war and equipment installed for it would be complete.
"We are convinced with the equipment that the navy could rely on the PKR fregate for securing the Indonesian territorial waters," he reinstated.
The shipbuilding project is a cooperation project between PT PAL and DSNS from the Netherlands.
"The project is divided into six modules or sections with four of them to be built by PT PAL while the other two, consisting of the engineering system and platform, in the Netherlands," he added.
If the two modules are completed in the Netherlands, they will be brought to Indonesia to be assembled at PT PAL along with the six modules.
He pointed out that although six modules will be built in Indonesia, their quality is assured because they are built under Dutch supervision.
"The 105-meter long ship is the first out of the two ordered by the navy. We estimate that the production process will take around 48 months or it will finish at the end of December 2016," he confirmed.
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