Philippines Becomes First Foreign Buyer of Indo-Russian BrahMos Anti-Ship Missile

The Philippines has long expressed an interest in acquiring BrahMos, one of the world's fastest anti-ship missiles, to augment naval capacity in order to thwart any threat to the nation's maritime domain from outside incursions.

The Philippines has become the first foreign customer for the Indo-Russian supersonic cruise missile BrahMos by issuing a "notice of award" to the missile manufacturer BrahMos Aerospace Ltd.

"The proposal of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd for the shore-based anti-ship missile system acquisition project for the Philippines Navy, with a corresponding price proposal in the amount of 374.962 million, is hereby accepted", the order issued by the Department of National Defence read.

As then CEO and MD, worked on the Philippines contract for the past five years very hard connecting people, dots, procedures & unseen forces. BrahMos has shown the way for high value defence exports. Jai Hind. @del_lorenzana @LevinaNeythiri @rajatpTOI @NavbharatTimes @JagranNews pic.twitter.com/VfM5YlxOyc

— sudhir mishra (@sudhirmishraone) January 14, 2022

The export variant of the ship-launched BrahMos has a combat range of 290 km, which is appropriate for the armed forces of the Philippines to cover all surface targets within the majority of the country's territorial waters.

The Philippines has a territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea, and it went to a UN tribunal on the issue in 2013.

India recently offered the Philippines a $100 million line of credit to acquire the missile system.

The Philippines also plans to purchase two land-based BrahMos missile system batteries under the 2018-22 armed forces modernisation programme.

India has also been negotiating the sale of BrahMos missiles with over a dozen countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Egypt, and Vietnam. BrahMos, which has a network-centric architecture and multiple trajectories, can destroy a target with a speed three times that of sound.