Having consolidated critical manufacturing capabilities in the land and naval divisions, Milkor UAE is moving towards aerospace and weapons divisions in their vision to offer turnkey defence solutions in Air, Land and Sea to all regions across the world. Julian Coetzee, Chief Executive Officer – Milkor UAE, says they have plans to demonstrate the Milkor IPC across the Arabian Gulf and North African region and reveals that the Milkor UCAV would likely be their next ‘Make it in the Emirates’ product to be completed. Excerpts from an interview in the context of IDEX 2023, Abu Dhabi.
Milkor UAE was established in Abu Dhabi in 2020 with your official launch at IDEX 2021. What are the major achievements since?
We’ve established critical manufacturing capability in the UAE, more so in our Naval and Land Divisions. We have two manufacturing facilities in Abu Dhabi and one manufacturing facility in Dubai working on both of these divisions. So for us receiving our defence manufacturing licenses and being able to actually design and build Milkor UAE’s own products here in our facilities for me is two of our major achievements this far.
How important a market is the Middle East for Milkor? What are the highlights of your operations in the region?
All regions are important. I wouldn’t give more importance to the Middle East, although we are established in the Middle East, the primary focus for us is to export our solutions to all regions across the world. Nonetheless, together with Milkor’s global marketing team we are planning to demonstrate the Milkor IPC across the Arabian Gulf and North African region as soon as our customer trials are concluded within the UAE.
Could you elaborate on the latest operations of your land division?
Stock, this is the most important thing. The factory is currently in production for our stock units of our MRAP Variant, this production cycle should be finished within the next couple of month.
What are Milkor’s products in the Naval division? What are the future plans in the sector?
The Milkor IPC is our focus right now. We’ve completed sea trials in the Arabian Gulf and it surpassed expectations. We’ve also installed unmanned capability, so it can currently be operated as a manned or unmanned system. Our future plans are to develop a range of USVs which we’ve already conceptualized.
Could you talk about the company’s participation at IDEX 2023?
This year for us it’s about showing our progress as a local UAE company and the capability that we’ve built. Since day one we’ve vowed to create and develop home-grown capability in the UAE, which we’ve certainly achieved.
What are the company’s expansion plans? Could you talk about the immediate goals in the future?
Our immediate goals are to further extend our capability offering in the UAE. As mentioned we’ve established our land and naval divisions. We have yet to do this for our aerospace and weapons division which we are currently working towards. The Milkor UCAV program is in a very advanced stage and would likely be our next ‘Make it in the Emirates’ product to be completed.
