Indonesia to Be the Recipient of Eight Frigates From Italian Shipbuilder Fincantieri

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri has announced that it struck a deal with the Indonesian Ministry of Defense to provide eight frigates for the Indonesian Navy (TNI AL).

The agreement is in line with Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto’s ongoing efforts to modernize the Indonesian Armed Forces or TNI’s aging and obsolete weapons systems.

“Fincantieri…and the Ministry of Defense of Indonesia, have signed a contract for the supply of 6 FREMM class frigates, [as well as] the modernization and sale of 2 Maestrale class frigates,” claimed Fincantieri in its website.

“Fincantieri will be the prime contractor” for the deal, which “is of the utmost importance to strengthen the collaboration between [Indonesia and Italy] in a strategic area of the Pacific.”

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Fincantieri added that it will modernize the Maestrale-class frigates in Italy, once the Italian Navy decommissioned the vessels. The company maintained that the deal is just as beneficial economically, as they are strategically.

“The construction of the frigates will ensure significant employment benefits not only for several Italian shipyards of the Group in the next years…and will see the collaboration [with Indonesian shipbuilder] PT-PAL shipyard [in Surabaya, East Java],” Fincantieri noted.

According to Kompas.id, the FREMM class frigate is a joint Italian-French project for their navies. The 144-meter long vessels weighs 6,500 tons and has a top speed of 27 knots.

The FREMM class frigates’ capabilities included sonar detection and a variety of weapons, including 127/64 volcano guns. The ships also carries rigid hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs) and two helicopter hangars

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