South Korea: Russia intrudes, 3 trillion worth of arms exports to India collapse

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The 3 trillion won anti-aircraft weapon business that the Korean defense industry was trying to export to India faced a crisis of collapse. The possibility that India will change its policy toward promoting the project through its own development rather than overseas introduction is being discussed.

According to the Indian media ThePrint on the 17th, the Ministry of Defense of India recently decided to cancel the overseas introduction of the SPAD-GMS system at a special meeting gathered by senior officials. The media explains that it has established itself with domestic self-development in accordance with the Indian government's manufacturing industry promotion policy, Make in India .

If this report is true, the Korean government and industry are in vain after attempting to export asylum-free complex for 7 years. The asylum complex is a weapon that links anti-aircraft guns and missiles that capture enemy aircraft and drones that penetrate at low altitudes, and complements the short range of anti-aircraft guns with low-altitude short-range interceptor missiles. Developed in 2013 and deployed in Korea since 2015, this weapon system was equipped with a surface to air missile Jingu produced by LIG Nex1 on Hanwha Defense's self-propelled anti-aircraft gun'Biho.

In order to deploy the defense system to the five army brigades in the border with Pakistan, the Indian military authorities announced the bidding for the SPAD-GMS project in 2013, then announced the results of the technology evaluation in 2015 and went through procedures such as test evaluation in 2017. During this period, the Korean defense industry set a shift from domestic demand to an export-oriented structure and put effort into pioneering the Indian market by advocating an asylum complex. The project consisting of 104 non-housing complexes, 97 ammunition vehicles, 39 command vehicles, and 4928 missiles and 172,260 missiles and bullets each, is estimated to be between 2.5 trillion won and 3 trillion won.

There was once a green light on exports. In October 2018, the Indian government voted as a single candidate for equipment subject to price negotiations. It was the result of a three-quarter battle with a Russian company that was a leader in this field, such as Almaz Antenna's upgraded Tunguska and KBPTULA's Pancir System. However, no further progress was made. As expected, it was possible to predict the delivery of weapons within this year through the selection of preferred negotiators and final contracts, but the disruption of Russia served as a variable.

Russian authorities have consistently demanded re-evaluation from India including publicly complaining of complaints after the selection of a singular candidate for the asylum complex. It was a method of warning that India's dependence on Russian weapons could lead to a disruption in future defense cooperation.

In fact, it is said that this year, India has been conscious of the opposition from Russia and has been weighing whether or not it will re-evaluate Russian weapons. It is analyzed that the story of self-development in India is based on the calculation of trying to avoid the harsh relationship with Russia.

The Korean defense industry is embarrassed. There is also concern that the governments efforts, which have made special efforts to export the asylum complex to India may be disregarded. The government invited Indian Defense Minister Raj Nat Singh as the only ministerial figure among participating countries to the Seoul Security Dialogue (SDD) held in Seoul last September and even interviewed the Prime Minister.

Defense Minister Chung Gyeong-du sent a letter to India for cooperation in the name of the minister at the beginning of last year. It was a will to put India, the world's second largest arms importer into the ranks of the major export market of the Korean defense industry. An official from the defense industry said, we have not received any official notification from the Indian government yet.