Defence Minister of Malaysia (DSU) Mohamad Hasan told parliament today that he will be going to Turkiye soon to negotiate the procurement of the Littoral Mission Ship Batch 2.
Prime Minister DS Anwar Ibrahim when presenting the 2023 budget on February 24 announced that the LMS Batch 2 procurement is included in the Defence Ministry’s allocation. In the post, Malaysian Defence stated that the LMS Batch 2 will be procured from either Turkiye or South Korea.
The Defence Minister did not identify the ship to be procure though it is likely to be the Ada class corvette to be chosen. Why? It fits the bill for the LMS Batch 2 as specified by the RMN – a ship about 80 to 99 metres in length and equipped with surface-to-surface missiles and anti-missiles apart from its other armaments (76mm main gun and 30mm guns).
More importantly, Turkey is building them currently for export customers including Pakistan and Ukraine. Perhaps, we could even get Turkiye to persuade Ukraine to pass on to Malaysia the first of four Ada-class corvettes already launched last December. It is not like Ukraine can use the ship for its intended purpose now. Ukraine can use the money we paid for the ships to buy other weapons that could be delivered to the country. That said it could be more expensive than getting Turkiye to built our ships from the ground-up though it will cut the delivery time to RMN by three years.
That said it is still not clear whether Turkiye is the only option or whether the government will be looking at other countries as well. China is unlikely though even though it can offer us the cheapest options.
