Philippines to Purchase Two Brahmos Missile Batteries from India, Contract in May

The Philippines Army is set to become the first international customer of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile with its Department of National Defense (DND) intending to buy two batteries the contract for which is expected to be signed in May 2020.

Following the announcement by DND Secretary Delfin Lorenzana in December, Brahmos is gearing up for its first international sale. While the value of the contract has not been disclosed it is part of a PHP300 billion (US$5.9 Billion) DND modernization program for 2018-2022.

“We expect [signing the agreement] sometime in April or May,” Brahmos General Manager for Marketing, Praveen Pathak told reporters on Monday, without elaborating what country plans to acquire the Russian-Indian cruise missile.

In addition to the two land-based batteries, Manila could be looking at buying ship-based Brahmos systems too. Philippine media reported that its Army officials paid a visit to the Indian Navy’s “Shivalik”-class guided missile frigate, INS Sahyadri to learn more about its missile capabilities which include the “BrahMos” cruise missile.

While the Philippines is considered a done deal, other countries with which negotiations have been going on include Vietnam, Chile, Qatar and Malaysia.

The Brahmos is expected to cost substantially lower than similar systems from MBDA or Raytheon, though technicalities may vary.

Having supplied hundreds of missiles to the three Indian services with launch capability from land, air and sea, Brahmos Aerospace, the Indo-Russian joint venture has built up substantial infrastructure for serial manufacture of the missile for over 15 years.