As Saudi Arabia accelerates its naval modernisation and advances its Vision 2030 localisation goals, international defence partners are playing a pivotal role in strengthening the Kingdom’s maritime capabilities. Among them, Naval Group has maintained a presence in the Kingdom for over four decades, supporting fleet development, operational readiness, and industrial cooperation. In this interview, Patrice Pyra, VP Sales and Country Director Saudi Arabia, Naval Group, discusses the evolution of the company’s partnership with the Kingdom, its approach to localisation and capability building, and how platforms like the FDI frigate are designed to address emerging multi-domain threats.
Naval Group has a long-standing presence in Saudi Arabia. How would you describe the evolution of your partnership with the Kingdom over the years?
Naval Group is present in Saudi Arabia for more than 40 years, since we delivered SW1 ships and frigates in the 1980’s followed by SW2 frigates in the 2000’s. We have a strong commitment in the Kingdom and have created a permanent establishment since 2007. A key milestone was reached in 2013 with the creation of Naval Group Arabia, our subsidiary in Saudi Arabia.
Our objective is to develop sustainable, long-term partnerships which contribute to self-reliance and sovereignty.
Naval Group is yet committed to localizing operations and collaborating with various actors within the Kingdom through the current support contract of the SW Fleet. underscoring our long-term commitment to supporting the Saudi Navy’s operational capabilities.
Additionally, we have developed cooperation with local industries and universities to support the growth of the local naval industry.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a strategic priority for Naval Group. Our ongoing efforts to localize operations and collaborate with local entities further solidify this partnership, ensuring mutual benefits and sustained growth.
Saudi Arabia is placing strong emphasis on localisation and industrial capability development. How is Naval Group aligning its strategy with Vision 2030?
We fully support Saudi Vision 2030 plan launched by HRH Mohammed Bin Salman and in term of local presence and saoudization, our subsidiary in KSA has more than 1/3 of the employees being Saudi nationals.
Our strategy is to develop local capabilities. We do this for example in the current SW support contract with the objective to replace half of the french technicians by Saudi ones. This initiative not only supports Saoudisation efforts but also ensures the upskilling of the local workforce, creating highly qualified jobs and high-added value activity on the longer run.
Besides the saoudisation, the partnerships that we built with the local industry in order to develop the self-reliance of the kingdom are fully in line with the Vision 2030 reflecting a deep commitment to localizing key capabilities to support the naval fleet within the Kingdom.
How does the FDI address emerging threats such as saturation attacks, asymmetric warfare and multi-domain operations?
The FDI of Naval Group is a next-generation combat frigate designed for high-intensity operations. It is a master of all domains: air defence, ASW, strike, cybersecurity and digital warfare. It is not a compromise ship, it is a concentration of high-end capabilities in a balanced platform.
In anti-air warfare, Naval Group’s systems demonstrated combat preparedness through a series of instances in the Red Sea where French frigates successfully intercepted drones, anti-ship missiles and ballistic missiles.
FDI can be configured with up to 32 VLS, advanced missiles, and additional effectors. Export versions can include more firepower depending on customer requirements. The architecture is modular and scalable.
The FDI of Naval Group has already been delivered to two navies, the French Navy with thé FDI Amiral Ronarc’h and the Hellenic with the FDI Kimon ; it is not a frigate built from scratch. It’s already proven in sea trials, and most of its equipments are combat proven.
Designed to counter all modern threats, the FDI ensures full-spectrum protection in demanding operational environments without any performance compromise.
- Leveraging on French frigates AAW combat proven track records (Red Sea), FDI displays improved high-end Area Air Defence capabilities against current threats and asymetric threats as successfully demonstrated in the Red Sea where French frigates successfully intercepted drones, anti-ship missiles and ballistic missiles.
- The FDI’s ASW systems- combat proven based on a theater ASW with Thales Captas sonar. Thanks to these capabilities, French Navy frigates have distinguished themselves on several occasions among other navies.
- AsyW: a unique solution for panoramic surveillance and the fight against asymmetric threats and UAVs, covering the entire spectrum of maritime security (piracy, trafficking, terrorism, etc.), including airborne and surface UAV.
How do you see Naval Group’s role in supporting Saudi Arabia’s naval modernisation over the next decade?
Naval Group has consistently increased its cooperation with Saudi Navy and defense ecosystem in order to enhance the country’s self-reliance and sovereignty at sea.
We are determined to provide high performance naval military capacity together with the logistic support and the creation of the industrial defense and technological basis standing by our customers and partners for the long term.
Through the current 4 years support contract for the SW Fleet, we already developed a strong cooperation with the industrial ecosystem in Saudi Arabia by transferring part of the Supply Chain in the Kingdom for manufacturing spare parts or doing repair. We have yet qualified about 40 industrlal partners and suppliers aiming to qualify over 60.
We are working yet in many domains which composed the portfolio of all technological domains of the naval industry and prepared for broader partnerships in Saudi Arabia with the key industrial stakeholders of the shipbuilding and missions systems companies. These partnerships are set to propel Saudi Arabia to the naval shipbuilding and MRO services, not just locally but on a global scale.
