Thales International CEO to (Maaal): Radar and air defense systems industrial factory to be established in the Kingdom

By Fahd Al-Talal

Pascale Sourisse, President and CEO of Thales International, revealed: They are in the process of agreeing with the Saudi Military Industries Company (SAMI) regarding establishing a specialized center for manufacturing radar, in addition to another center specialized in air defense systems, which will be established in a joint project.

Souris, president of the French company (Thales International), said in an interview with Mal newspaper on the sidelines of the World Defense Exhibition in its second edition: We have an air defense contract, called SHIKRA, that we signed in 2020, and we are in the process of developing and delivering this contract.

The Kingdom is expected to continue developing air defense systems through the French company Thales, according to Souris during her interview with the newspaper (Mal), where she said, “We expect continued cooperation with the Saudi Military Industries Company (SAMI), and this is the area in which the Kingdom expects to continue.” “In relying on Thales solutions, and carrying out activities that will enable us to increase technology transfer and transfer capabilities to the Kingdom.”

Regarding whether Thales plans to open factories or branches in Saudi Arabia to cover the demand from Saudi Arabia, the Asia region and the Middle East, Pascal said: “For our organization, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a large country, and we decided to establish our headquarters in it to cover the demand from it and Central Asia. In addition to that, The Kingdom is our regional headquarters for activities in the field of civil security, critical infrastructure protection and biometric solutions.”

Pascal added: We are engaged in all these topics with the Saudi government and the Ministry of Interior, and we decided that it makes very sense for us to work in these areas, not only for the Kingdom, but for the entire Middle East region. This is just a fraction of the type of activities we want to implement.

Regarding the number of Saudi employees at Thales, Souris confirmed: We have 300 Saudi employees working at Thales at the present time and we plan to raise this number to 600 employees by 2026. We have special efforts to involve women as well, because a number of them have a very good level of education and can They become good engineers. All of this is included in the comprehensive recruitment process at Thales to find the right talent and also contribute fundamentally to enhancing our capabilities, not only in terms of production, but also in terms of engineering and innovation, referring to the number of employees of more than 77 thousand around the world. At Thales, more than 30% of them are engineers.

She pointed out that the signed contracts aim to localize activities and competencies in Saudi Arabia, so we invited a group of Saudi engineers of both genders to join our laboratories to obtain training on air defense systems and they will be able, upon their return to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to take responsibility for the project directly.

She added: “Today, 300 people work in the Kingdom, and we plan to double this number by 2026, including intensifying our activities with the Saudi Military Industries Company (SAMI) in the field of air defense.”

The CEO of Thales International confirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a very important country for Thales, which specializes in air, sea and land defense technologies, as the company has been present in the Kingdom for 55 years.

Regarding the financial size of the value of the deals between Saudi Arabia and Thales, Pascal said, “The projects we are discussing include relatively large investments, so we are talking about projects that may be estimated at hundreds of millions, or perhaps they may arrive after a few years to represent activities estimated at billions,” adding, “The company has many projects.” In Saudi Arabia and in several fields such as radar, air, sea and land defense.

Regarding Thales’ expectations for the volume of demand for defense systems in the region, Souris replied: The market is very dynamic and the current geopolitical situation indicates that many countries want to increase their expenditures in the field of defense, and some countries have already increased their expenditures in the field of defense, very clearly, and they need to a lot of the systems that Thales offers, so we discussed a lot of the field of air defense radar and air defense. This also applies to the capabilities of Thales.

Regarding the involvement of Saudi small and medium-sized companies in the military and defense industries, Souris said, “Our goal is to involve many small and medium-sized companies, and this is what we are actually doing, by involving these companies in our supply chain, but our primary goal is to localize activities further in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and we We actually started this through our joint projects and we want to localize more production capabilities, development capabilities, with engineering and support services directly in Saudi Arabia, to maintain the systems that we provide to end users, and maintain them directly from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This requires us to work closely with Saudi stakeholders in the field of education, and identify suitable talent in this direction.