Australia aims to be leading defense-industry exporter

CANBERRA - Australia's government announced a strategy on Monday to create high-tech jobs and become one of the top 10 defense-industry-exporting countries within a decade through arms sales to liked-minded nations while also keeping those weapons from rogue regimes.

Australia will create a $3 billion fund to lend to exporters that banks are reluctant to finance, a central defense export office and expand the roles of defense attaches in Australian embassies around the world.

Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull said that with $249 billion budgeted to increase Australian defense capabilities in the next decade, Australia should rank higher than 20th among arms-exporting countries. The planned Australian military buildup was the largest in its peacetime history, he said.

"Given the size of our defense budget, we should be a lot higher up the scale than that. So the goal is to get into the top 10," Turnbull said.

Defense Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said Australia would focus on growing sales to its biggest markets including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, which already import Australian-made equipment including the Bushmaster armored vehicle and the Nulka missile decoy. The five nations belong to an intelligence-sharing network known as the Five Eyes.

"We want to support the US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, our European friends and allies, Japan, South Korea, et cetera, in what is a building up of the global military capability of countries like ourselves who support the rules-based international order," Pyne said.

Most of the new Australian military spending is on submarines and frigates that will be largely built in Australia.

Associated Press

(China Daily 01/30/2018 page11)