ST Engineering signs new Hunter deal, signals strong Q1

Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering) has said that its orderbook remains strong at the end of the first quarter of this year (Q1 2020), boosted by a contract to build additional Hunter tracked armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) for the Singapore Army.

In a statement on 20 April the group said its Aerospace and Electronics divisions had secured SGD1.6 billion (USD1.1 billion) in new contracts during Q1 2020, mainly for production and maintenance activity in commercial sectors.

ST Engineering added that its Land Systems division also won a “Phase 2 contract” from the Singapore Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) to produce and supply an unspecified number of Hunter AFVs. The company said that under the Phase 2 contract, the value of which was not disclosed, ST Engineering will also provide integrated logistics support including spares, training, and documentation.

The Singapore Army commissioned the Hunter AFV in June 2019, with the vehicle positioned to replace the army’s fleet of upgraded but increasingly obsolescent M113A2 Ultra armoured personnel carriers (APCs), which have been in service since the early 1970s.

The Hunter was developed by ST Engineering in collaboration with the Singapore Army and Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency. A contract to support Phase 1 production of the vehicles was announced by MINDEF in March 2017, although the number of units built under this deal was not revealed.